This morning I took a walk through the Brentwood Creekside Park and down Eureka Ave. as part of a super-early scouting effort for the East Contra Costa CBC. The absolute highlight came in the form of a Red Crossbill flying over me on Claremont Drive. It is not a particularly good year for this species, and there are very few records for the Central Valley portion of the county. This stretch of Marsh Creek is unique in that it is the only place on the Central Valley floor where Chickadees are resident, that I know of, and I found only one here today in the large valley oaks behind the playground. With it were two Townsend's Warblers and a Western Tanager. The neighborhoods on Cheshire and Claremont Drives had two Hutton's Vireos (singing), and a Purple Finch fed on the pistache here. These are all species we often miss on the count. At the Eureka Ave. bridge was a G-c Kinglet and a female Townsend's Warbler, and in two different orchards further east on Eureka I was pleased to find single Chipping Sparrows with a smattering of Lark Sparrows. This seems to be a rare but increasing winter species in the county.
Checking a few other spots around afterwards was a largely fruitless endeavor.
