Peter Gaede and I spent some time around the Pride of Madeira patches at Elings Park this afternoon (see yesterday's post for directions). Peter got a quick look at the Calliope. There's a gorgeous male Costa's Hummer that was consistently going to the upper patch of flowers (area described by Florence this morning). Other highlights were a rare Crotch's Bumble Bee, a large California Common Scorpion, and a flyover Mallard (rare at the park!).
Biking home along Las Positas, I came across a flattened small owl on the road. I'll put up photos temporarily on my Flickr page. Let me know if you know what species it is. Western Screech would be the most likely candidate, but it's quite brown. I just read that about 7% are a brown morph, so I wonder if it's that.
