donnak@sco.COM (Donna Karolchik) (01/06/91)
I've been reading all the postings about hummers in CA which are perhaps pretty hungry after our recent frigid weather. That prompted me to post a question about another possible result of the cold weather. In Santa Cruz it seems that all the killdeer have totally wigged out...they appear to be hanging out in people's yards, walking down the middle of the streets, sitting in the middle of intersections, etc. If this is normal behavior, then it is certainly something I haven't seen in the 4 years that I've lived here! Our neighborhood killdeer moved in to a neighbor's yard a day or so after the cold snap began. It hangs out there all the time, and cries several times during the night when cars pass or a local cat strolls by. What is happening here? Has the usual food source been destroyed by the cold? Or is this just another symptom of how messed up our environment is becoming? Thanks for any info or speculations... -donna
alonso@clausius.mmwb.ucsf.edu (01/07/91)
I too have noticed a large influx of Killdeer here in San Francisco since the feeze. It can get pretty eirie with their calls when I am bicycling home through Golden Gate park late at night. They all seem healthy enough though, and I seem to recall other times when there were many here in S.F. It's not one of your hard core 60 species Christmas counts, but I had a really pleasant day birding at Pt. Reyes a just before New Year. A friend was down from Fairbanks, so it was a treat for her to see things other than Redpoll and Crows. I got real good looks at three of my favorite (though not exactly rare) birds; White Pelicans, Western Bluebirds, and Cinnamon Teal. The White Pelicans were feeding by just dipping their heads under in fairly shallow water right at the edges of some sea weed/grass beds in Drake's Estero. Doesn anyone out there know what they eat? Darwin O.V. Alonso alonso@maxwell.mmwb.ucsf.edu U.C. San Francisco, or wk. (415) 476-8910; home 564-8601 alonso@cgl.ucsf.edu
priag@ESD.3Com.COM (Pria Graves) (01/15/91)
I heard a reasonable conjecture about why all the killdeer are flocking to the cities: the field insects they normally feed on in the north bay have been killed by the cold. They are trying desperately to find enough to eat in the warmer suburban and coastal areas. Let's just hope they make it until the insect population recovers!