San Francisco Area Bird-watching

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National Geographic Guide to Birdwatching Sites, Western U.S.

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Point Reyes National Seashore earns its superb birding reputation on several levels. Beginners or visitors from outside the region will find many characteristic land birds of this area in forests (walk the Bear Valley Trail), scrub, and fields, including California Quail, Anna’s and Allen’s (absent fall through early winter) Hummingbirds, Nuttall’s Woodpecker, Pacific-slope Flycatcher (spring and summer), Hutton’s Vireo, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Oak Titmouse, Pygmy Nuthatch, Wrentit, and California Towhee. Spots such as Limantour Beach can have concentrations of migrant shorebirds; walk along the Spit, and take the Estero and Muddy Hollow Trails north past ponds good for waterbirds. Walk to Abbott’s Lagoon, on Pierce Point Road, to look for winter and migrant waterfowl, and visit Drake’s Estero for waders and shorebirds.

The lighthouse area makes a great lookout for seabirds, including Red-throated and Pacific Loons, Sooty Shearwater (summer and early fall), Brown Pelican (summer and fall), Brandt’s and Pelagic Cormorants, scoters (fall through spring), Black Oystercatcher and other rocky shorebirds, Common Murre, Pigeon Guillemot, Rhinoceros Auklet, and other alcids. Where Sir Francis Drake Boulevard turns west to the lighthouse, drive east toward Chimney Rock and check Drake’s Bay for loons, grebes, and sea ducks.

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- Golden Gate National Recreation Area
- Golden Gate Park
- Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge
- Pillar Point

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Point Reyes offers some special birding challenges, too. The rare Spotted Owl is a possibility at adjacent Tomales Bay State Park, where trails provide good land birding, and the bay hosts Osprey and migrant and winter waterfowl. Pacific Golden-Plover is often found in pastures from fall through spring. Check along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard near the side road to Drake’s Beach, or continue south 0.8 mile [1.3 kilometers] past Spaletta Ranch and pass through a gate on the east to check the field. Look also for wintering raptors and longspurs in these areas. Isolated patches of trees in this part of the park, including those around dairy farms, are famed migrant and vagrant traps in fall and late spring, when all sorts of eastern migrants may show up. Conditions are best for migrants when the sky is overcast or fog is present. (Dairy ranches are private, so use discretion when birding around them, and leave gates as you find them.) Point Reyes is a large and heavily birded area, so ask park naturalists about recent sightings and best locations for the time of your visit.
Just to the south, Bolinas Lagoon is also excellent for waders, waterfowl including migrant Brant, and resident Osprey. From Olema, drive south on California 1 about 9 miles [14.5 kilometers] and turn south on Olema-Bolinas Road, scanning the water where you can. Also check the lagoon from pull-offs along California 1 south of this road. Just north of California 1 here, Audubon Canyon Ranch (open mid-March–mid-July) is home to a colony of Great Blue Herons and Great and Snowy Egrets nesting in redwood trees. An observation platform provides a great view of the lively, noisy business of raising a new generation of these waders.

Golden Gate National Recreation Area
In fall, visit the Marin Headlands area of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (take the Alexander Ave. exit from US 101 N of Golden Gate Bridge and drive W), where Battery 129 on Conzelman Road is known to birders as “Hawk Hill.” Peak months are September and October, when thousands of raptors, including Osprey; Northern Harrier; accipiters; Red-shouldered, Broad-winged (rare), and Red-tailed Hawks; Golden Eagle; Merlin; and Peregrine Falcon pass over the region’s most famous hawk-watching site. Visitors to San Francisco without time to travel far from the city will also find Marin Headlands a pleasant place to see typical area birds such as California Quail, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, and Wrentit, and exploring its coastline and Rodeo Lagoon will always turn up waterbirds.

Golden Gate Park

An oystercatcher rests on the shore at Point Lobos State Reserve, in Monterey County.

Photograph © Joe McDonald/Corbis

Many an out-of-state visitor has seen his or her first Glaucous-winged Gull, Anna’s Hummingbird, Western Scrub-Jay, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Bushtit, Pygmy Nuthatch, Wrentit, or California Towhee right in the heart of San Francisco at Golden Gate Park. To this list can be added nesting Allen’s Hummingbird and wintering Mew Gull, Red-breasted Sapsucker, Varied Thrush, and Golden-crowned Sparrow. Wooded areas and plantings in the western part of this expansive park offer the best land birding, but local bird-watchers keep an eye on all the park lakes for waterfowl and gulls. Eurasian Wigeon appears here regularly in winter, and the very rare Tufted Duck has been found a number of times.
Next drive just to the northeast, at the western end of Point Lobos Avenue, where the Cliff House area of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area provides visitors with an excellent viewpoint for finding seabirds and shorebirds year-round. Black Oystercatcher is a nesting resident on the rocks below, and other “rocky shorebirds” are present except in midsummer. Look also for Brandt’s and Pelagic Cormorants, Brown Pelican, gulls (Western nests here, and Heermann’s is present much of the year), Elegant Tern (in summer), Common Murre, Pigeon Guillemot (absent in winter), and any number of other waterbirds, including possible wintering Harlequin Duck, scoters, and Oldsquaw. Walking down to the old Sutro Baths (where waterfowl rest on ponds) and the Point Lobos area offers additional birding opportunities.

Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge

An avocet feeds in Mono County, California.

Photograph © George Lepp/Corbis

Waders, waterfowl, shorebirds, and other wetlands species can be found at several accessible sites on the southern end of San Francisco Bay. To reach the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, take the Paseo Padre Parkway/Thornton Avenue exit from California 84, just east of the Dumbarton Bridge at Newark, and drive south 0.8 mile [1.3 kilometers] to the entrance. The Tidelands Trail, a 1-mile [1.6-kilometer] loop, traverses marshland where Pied-billed and Eared Grebes, American Bittern, Great and Snowy Egrets, dabbling ducks, Common Moorhen, Black-necked Stilt, and American Avocet are present all year, and an array of shorebirds, gulls, and terns changes with the seasons. Follow Marshlands Road (closed April–Aug. to protect nesting Snowy Plover) to its end to walk the Shoreline Trail along the edge of the bay, where with luck (and high tide, which pushes birds up to drier ground) you might see a Clapper Rail—or with lots of luck, a Black Rail in winter. The trail leads north about 4 miles [6.4 kilometers] to Coyote Hills Regional Park, where more trails provide access to freshwater marsh. You can also reach the park by taking the Paseo Padre Parkway/Thornton Avenue exit off California 84 and driving 1.5 miles [2.4 kilometers] north to Patterson Ranch Road, which leads to the entrance. White-tailed Kite might be seen here or at the refuge.
To reach another unit of the national wildlife refuge, at Milpitas take California 237 west from I-880 for 1.2 miles [1.9 kilometers], turn north on Zanker Road, and continue 2.1 miles [3.4 kilometers] to the refuge Environmental Education Center. The Mallard Slough and Alviso Slough Trails are excellent birding walks for wetland species. For more similar marsh habitat, take Embarcadero Road east from US 101 in Palo Alto, on the west side of the bay, to Palo Alto Baylands Preserve, where birders also look for Clapper Rail and, at high tide in winter, for the elusive Black Rail and Nelson’s Sharp-tailed Sparrow.

Pillar Point
Following California 1 south from the Bay Area along the Pacific coast will take you past a number of excellent sites for observing seabirds and shorebirds. Just north of Half Moon Bay, drive west through the community of Princeton toward Pillar Point, a fine spot from which to scan the sea for loons, grebes, sea ducks, and alcids, and the rocky coast for shorebirds. The harbor here should be checked for waterfowl as well as seabirds; Brant can be common in spring. Check gull flocks for Thayer’s, occurring regularly but in small numbers.