Bird watching and alumni BBQ event - Imperial College Alumni Associaition of Nothern California

The Imperial College Alumni Associaition of Nothern California held a bird watching and BBQ event on Saturday 22 October 2005.

Alumnus Nimish Jhaveri persuaded about 10 alumni and friends to brave the morning fog and assemble at 09:00 on Saturday 22 Octoberat Las Gallinas Wildlife Ponds, in Marin County (http://www.bahiker.com/northbayhikes/lgwp.html) for a bird watching field trip. Bob Power, a birding expert from the Golden Gate Audubon Society, with two telescopes and an exceptional knowledge of birds, made our trip most exciting.

We walked along the percolation ponds and saw, among many others:

Ducks/Geese: Northern shovelers, cinnamon teal, green-winged teal, black-necked teal, mallards, gadwall, northern pintail, grebes, cormorants, Canada geese, white pelicans (they are fresh-water birds and their lower beak splits in two),
Waders: Avocets, black-necked stilts, godwit, Night herons, snowy egrets, great egret (there are no white herons on the west coast), great blue heron
Raptors: Red tailed hawks, red shouldered hawks, Swainson's hawk, turkey vultures, American kestrel, harrier, kites
Perching birds: various sparrows, red-winged blackbirds, crows
We watched bird behaviour - 2 avocets chasing each other and dancing on the water, crows chasing red-tailed hawks, a great egret stalking prey and a snowy egret swallowing something slimey. The fog gradually lifted and blue skies emerged.

At lunch someone had a laminated card guide to Birds of the San Francisco Bay Area and we must have seen at least half of them on our bird watching trip.

Thank you Nimish for organising the bird watching.

Barbecue

We then drove to the Marin Headlands where Steve Rowe had organised the Barbecue and considerably more alumni turned up. CB Watts brought drinks and many other brought salads, appetizers, pies and Valerie Rowe, who missed the event because of a demanding workload, supplied delicious Brownies. Steve Rowe with others cooked burgers, sausages and veggie burgers on a couple of barbecue grills - one brought specially for the purpose.

I did see the tips of the Golden Gate Bridge pillars on the way up, but the promised view was elusive. Alumni came well prepared for English Summer Weather with sailing togs, ski jackets, woolly jumpers, a sheepskin coat and fleeces. Such was the merriment, nobody complained of the cold, despite the fact we were in a fog.

A quiz question was emailed to everyone before the barbecue. The VC Funded Sailor who claimed the land for his kingdom was not Larry Ellison as Ewout (I seem to remember) thought - but Francis Drake in 1579, not yet knighted, so marks were taken off for adding "Sir". His favorite drink was Scrumpy and Devonian Steve Rowe presented Prudence Wise with a bottle of cider for getting the first, and possibly only, correct answer.
http://www.britainusa.com/consular/articles_show_nt1.asp?i=36010&L1=36000&L2=36010&a=36241

Prudence also informed us that the stories one hears about Drake's brass plate being discovered near San Francisco are based on a hoax.

A raffle was held for all who brought food and a bottle of wine presented to the winner.

Then a tanque game started. The challenging terrain was packed sand and scrubby grassy plants on a slope, with occasional rocks. First team to 9 points (reduced from the normal 13) was the winner. Referee Howard Wise was fielding errant balls and making sure measurements were fair. I did not stay to the end - so who won I'm not quite sure.

Thank you Steve, Val, CB, Arjuna and others for helping make the barbecue a success.

Photos from the day

Dick Watts brought a camera with closeup lens for our birding trip - his pictures are on:
http://www.snapfish.com/share/p=928231130087561744/l=64274545/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

NB: Make sure that if the line wraps that you join it back together to get the above link to work.

Barbecue pictures on http://www.amhey.com/IC/Barbecue2005/ and more bird watching pictures on http://www.amhey.com/IC/Birding/

By Angela Hey