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Yes, uncountable gazillions - see below:
HAYWARD, CA
Yesterday, 7/31/2011 was grey, drab, cloudy and moderate temperatured with little wind. My wife and I went to the Hayward Shoreline, on the San Francisco Bay (East Side). We didn't go too far or stay too long, and neither did we really try to count anything, for what will become obvious reasons. We got there just about as the tide turned and started coming back in from way out.
As we entered we were subsumed in a cloud of swallows. There are two breeding enclaves, one of Barn Swallows and one of Cliff Swallows, and they were everywhere all the time. In the exposed mud we immediately saw some Dowitchers and some Least Sandpipers. A bit later, a couple of Willets, a Long Billed Curlew and a snowy Egret. One lone White Pelican, clearly lost, cruised through and a Forster's Tern flew noisily by. A couple more shorebirds and we reached a mini-estuary at the bay. In the outflowing stream there were Gadwall on the left and Mallards on the right. Alone the shore, well, damn near everything in great profusion. Here is a summarization I wrote for myself upon arriving home:
3-4 Great Blue Herons, Mallards, 4 Ruddy Ducks, Gadwall, 1 White Pelican, a few Snowy and Great Egrets, a few Black Necked Stilts, Curlews, Godwits & Dowitchers, maybe 15-20 Red Necked Phalaropes, a White Tailed Kite, Forsters Terns (there is a nesting colony here), a Black Phoebe, 3 Brown Headed Cowbird fledges, 4 Song Sparrow fledges, umpteen ground squirrels, some Black Bellied Plovers, 1 Turkey Vulture, 1 possible Merlin, 1 possible Peregrine, huge flocks of Gulls, Avocets, Least Sandpipers & a huge mixed feeding flock. Also various everchanging clouds of birds whirling in the sky, some mid sized, but mostly peeps.
O.K., that what the middle East Bay shoreline is like these days. How about you folks, what are you seeing and where are you seeing it.