San Francisco: Day 3 + Heerman's Gull = 100

After the amazing Big Day on Sunday, you might think the final day would be a let down, but even though I didn't add many birds, I did reach the century mark early Monday morning when I spotted what turned out to be a Heerman's Gull. I was actually looking at a different bird, one that turned out to be a female Brewer's Blackbird,(girls are brownish), and almost missed the gull, as it was also brown, and sitting close by,(see photos below). I took a second look and noticed the larger size body and beak, and knew it wasn't any gull I had seen the past 2 days, and I had seen a lot of gulls.  So, when Sue figured out it was the Heerman's, I had reached 100 birds in 9 days.  Not bad for a a guy, who two weeks ago, would get impatient when Sue would stop to look at birds when we went for walks in the woods.

I am back in Toronto now and really enjoyed being on the west coast for a few days. I hadn't even been there to bird, originally. I have to admit that the trip was booked months before I decided to do a Big Year. I went to San Francisco to see The Mythbusters: Behind the Myths Tour at the Golden Gate Theatre. They put on a great show, and I was able to kill two birds with one... Never mind, bad pun.  But had I not had that trip planned, I doubt I would have even envisioned doing this.  Pretty cool how things work out sometimes.

So, air fare to San Francisco was just $130.00 - used air miles, ticket to Mythbusters Live, $80.00 and seeing 63 birds in 3 days, well that was, as the MasterCard folks say, "Priceless."