April 13, 2026: City of Menlo Park Birdwalk, Bedwell Bayfront Park

Lots of rain in the days leading up to the 4th Monthly City of Menlo Park Bedwell Bayfront Park Birdwalk Monday morning. The forecast said no rain and the morning looked promising as we all showed up.

We gathered as a group to do introductions, discuss the background and origin of the park. Rick passed out a checklist of common species for this time of year at Bedwell Bayfront Park. We considered bringing rain jackets and umbrellas along the way, but none of us thought we needed either.

We started off and everything was fine.

We were greeted by a male hummingbird sitting on a small branch We stopped to admire it's beautiful gorget.

Then the rain started!

I asked everyone if they wanted to go stand under a tree for shelter but they were fine getting rained on so we just continued and shortly after the rain stopped and the sun came out!

We saw a lot of small Western Sandpipers

Snowy Egret

Long-billed Dowitcher

Snowy Egret with small fish

Golden slippers

Forster's Tern

Barn Swallow

We can tell it's a barn swallow because of the forked tail. The cliff swallow looks very similar but has more of a fanned tail.

Male Northern Harrier aka "Grey Ghost"

Western Sandpipers

Forster's Tern

Western Kingbird - I did not realize this at the time or I would have gotten a bit closer to get some better shots!

Bewick's Wren