Hey tweets,

I remember a couple years back that there were a couple postings on birds folks had seen at Safeco Field, a total of maybe 10 species or so if I remember correctly, and most were pretty basic.

Well, being down in the San Joaquin Valley, I took a quick trip over to Oakland for an A's game last night against the Yankme's (the A's got crushed 15-6, but I was about 12 rows from the guy who threw his beer on the steroid cheater, Jason Giambi, so it was definitely entertaining). I got an interesting, yet short list of birds there, mostly before the game during batting practise, but many of these birds were still very active for the first 6 innings or so until it got dark.

White-throated Swift (lots of them zooming around the upper levels)
Cliff Swallow (there were a few zipping around inside)
Tree Swallow (no trees inside, but quite a few outside the stadium, so not too surprising I suppose)
California Gull (a couple dozen flying and perching in the upper level)
Ring-billed Gull (just a couple, but very obvious in comparison to the Cal Gulls)
American Goldfinch (a flock of about 18 flew over the infield after batting practise, but before the game started)
European Starling (of course)
House Sparrow (again, of course)
House Finch (a male was sitting up on a railing inside the stadium, singing while batting practise was going on, before the whole crowd showed up. Strange..)
California Towhee (this bird was tinking in a tree outside the entrance to gate C, so not sure if it counts, because it wasn't inside the stadium)

So it was an interesting group of birds at Oakland Coliseum (or McAfee Stadium or whatever the corporate mucky-mucks call the joint now). Made the ballgame a little more interesting, for me anyway. Good birding y'all!

Brett A. Wolfe
Seattle, WA (working in San Joaquin Valley for summer)
m_lincolnii at yahoo.com



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