Date: 1/28/26 2:18 pm From: Logan Kahle via groups.io <logankahlebird...> Subject: [SFBirds] GGP goodies 1/25 and 1/28
Hi All,
On Sunday afternoon (3-4:30pm) and Weds morning (7:30am-12:30pm) I birded various sites in central and eastern Golden Gate Park with Chris Henry. It was a very productive couple of outings, and we managed to turn up a few wintering goodies in the process.
1/25
We started our evening visit at Elk Glen Lake, partially hoping for the Gray Catbird and Rufous Hummingbird Marty Freeland and Lucas Stephenson found back in late November. We didn't find either of those but did locate a single young BLACK-THROATED GRAY WARBLER in the trees on the eastern side of the lake.
We proceeded to Mallard Lake where we unexpectedly turned up presumably the GRAY CATBIRD that had been found at Elk Glen in November in the bushes on the southeast side of the lake.
We ended our outing with a stop by Metson rd x MLK, where Chris spotted a sapsucker way up in the tops of the trees just north of the intersection. The bird kept its breast to the tree and not facing us the entire time, so we were never able to get a view of the breast pattern (though we could see all other relevant parts of the bird including throat, crown, nape, cheek, back etc). The head pattern was within range for RED-NAPED SAPSUCKER. It is unclear to me whether this bird is pure without views of the breast, but it is very much worth investigating (but what I could see looked fine for Red-nape). If it does have red-breast genes, it is likely not an F1 hybrid. I will upload photos to ebird today for any interested.
1/28
We started at the arboretum, where we gave the spot a more intensive visit than I often do, covering most parts of the garden. It ended up being very productive, with 2 separate Nashville Warblers (one with matted euc gum on the face, one without), 2 Red-breasted Sapsuckers, and an imm male/ad f SUMMER TANAGER. The tanager was on the south side of the succulent garden, just west of the big redwood grove. It was somewhat vocal, calling sporadically.
We birded the rest of far eastern Golden Gate Park as well, and turned up an imm/fem HERMIT WARBLER at the edge of the meadow just west of the Conservatory of Flowers.
