California, Day One: Fog, few birds, nice wine, one son

(In which are recorded the adventures and misadventures of Christopher, his wife Fran, brother Phil and sister-in-law Susan as they pursue a birding Big Year, working together because it’s the only chance they have of making a decent showing.)

Western Gull and chick. Photo courtesy of Alan Vernon, Creative Commons

We landed in San Francisco around 9:30 on January 29. The airline had called ahead, so there was a wheelchair waiting for Fran and her broken ankle when we arrived. After one of those interminable airport walks, we picked up our luggage and grabbed an AirTrain ride to the rental car counter. We were on our way in just about a half-hour.

Now here’s one of the great frustrations of being a birder and a driver, especially on busy interstate highways: you can’t stop to look. On our way to San Francisco proper we of course drove by a little part of San Francisco Bay. The water was covered with ducks, and a few waders sprinkled the shoreline.

We picked out Scaup because of their black-and-white pattern and Coots because, well, they looked like Coots, but at 65 miles per hour, that was pretty much it. And we couldn’t tell whether the Scaup were Lesser or Greater. We’re not that good. There were a lot of other species represented, too. But we had to give it up and focus on the road.

The Western Gulls were thick everywhere around the city, so we picked up another new species right away. As thick as the Western Gulls were, the fog was thicker, so it was tough spotting much else. It was also raining a little, which we couldn’t begrudge northern California, which has been the grip of an epic drought. So we decided to have a glass of wine.

If you’ve never been to Cliff House, you owe it to yourself to visit if only for the view, and I’m partial to the place on foggy days. The view is spectacular. Rocky spires jut out of the ocean and shatter the waves as they roll in. Gulls spin and twist around the huge picture windows and Double-crested Cormorants arrow by on their way to fish. Also, the wine’s good and not too expensive.

We’ve eaten at one of the Cliff House’s three restaurants, but that was a few years ago, so I can’t vouch for the food. My guess is it’s still good.

We did a little more driving around just to reacquaint ourselves with the area and didn’t see any new species. But it was a classic San Francisco day ending with dinner at Scoma’s on Fisherman’s Wharf with my son Justin who road his bicycle and took the BART over from Berkeley.

Justin had wrinkles. It was a bit of a shock.