Lake Merritt November 2008

Lake Merritt is in the middle of Oakland and I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand it's a very beautiful lake with lots of birds, but on the other hand, there's a lot of homeless people and pigeons. If you stay focused on the lake, then I guess it's OK and it did provide us with the opportunity of seeing some birds we haven't seen before like the Eared Grebe, Canvasback and Common Goldeneye. The lake also has a “sanctuary” that's a fenced off bit on the edge of the lake. The birds are not penned in, they are free to come and go, but it seems to have been used as a refuge for unwanted pets as there are a few birds here that wouldn't have flown here by themselves (well, unless they got their pilots license) - these domestic birds included Swan Geese, Muscovy Duck, Snow Geese and a Graylag Goose. Then there were a number of oddities that seemed to be Mallard crosses with some of these varieties. The birds below are:

Black-Crowned Night Heron (the brown and white mottled ones are juveniles as opposed to females)
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
California Gull
American Coot
Rock Pigeon (the white one near the end appears to be a cross with a white dove)
Mew Gull
Canada Goose
Canvasback
Redhead (I think - there were a couple of these and best I can tell is that they are female redheads, but they may be a cross with something else)
Lesser Scaup
Greater Scaup
Eared Grebe
Common Goldeneye
Fox Squirrel
Bufflehead
Swan Goose
Muscovy Duck
Snow Goose
Double-Crested Cormorant

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