This wild and open expanse of East Bay hills is part of Garin Dry Creek regional park, high above the city of Hayward. Our bracing tour will also include riparian groves and oak woodlands, additional habitats for many varieties of songbirds. Warblers, kinglets, finches and thrushes fly or forage in the woody thickets along the tree-lined creek. Flying in circles overhead or sitting as silent sentinels watching our peregrinations, Kestrels, Red-shoulder and Red-tail hawks await our discovery. Western bluebirds may hover or cavort over the grasslands. Occasionally we spy relative rarities, such as the Loggerhead shrike, or the striking, stripe-headed Lark sparrow. Ducks and grebes are also possibilities in a nearby secluded woodland pond, such as Ring-necks, Mallards and Pied-billeds. Altogether, this tour will be a fine morning full of a great variety of birds, raptors, songbirds, woodpeckers and wildfowl.