[obol] 7-mile hike in Calif. oak savannah (Merlin and Vaux's Swifts)

[Joel Geier]

Hi folks,

This was out-of-state but I thought it might be interesting for Oregon
birders to know that migrant VAUX'S SWIFTS are moving on through the San
Francisco Bay area even while flocks are still staging in Eugene. Also,
it might be interesting to know that a MERLIN has leapfrogged past us to
the same area. 

On Sunday I watched a Merlin that unsuccessfully gave chase to a group
of Vaux's Swifts foraging low over a ridge, while I was hiking through
Briones Regional Park in Alameda County, California, during a quick trip
for a meeting at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory on Monday.

Two other things about this hike really struck me, in retrospect:

1) Where in Oregon can you make a 7-mile, nearly linear hike though
continuous oak savanna? (a predominant habitat in the Willamette Valley
150 years ago).

2) Where in Oregon can you make such a hike directly from public
transport? (I started from the Lafayette BART station).

At Bald Hill Park in Corvallis you can hike seven miles through oak
savanna if you walk all the trails, but you have to go in loops. Baskett
Butte is similar. Maybe Mt. Pisgah near Eugene offers a similar
possibility? Or somewhere in the Rogue Valley?

Anyway, just some food for thought on the possibilities for oak savanna
restoration, public transport, and public lands in Oregon. California
does some things right.

Happy birding,
Joel

P.S. Despite being in the middle of one of North America's largest urban
areas, I only saw six other people along this hike (three mountain
bikers, three hikers). Tallies of bird species that I saw are posted on
www.birdnotes.net.