Alameda Creek - Sept. 13, '11

Walking Distance: 4.1 miles
Walking Time: 1 hr., 30 min. (5:58 - 7:28 p.m.)
Start and End Point: Street parking on Arizona St. (and Copa Del Oro), Union City, CA

This evening I continued to work my way up the Alameda Creek Regional Trail. I started at Arizona Street in Union City - near a small bridge over the creek, where I'd left off last week.

I walked east on the paved (asphalt) trail (shown as purple lines on the Bay Trail map). Some parts of this trail (underpasses) were packed dirt, but it was a nice broad trail for shared foot and bicycle traffic.

Alameda Creek is actually a large/broad creek bed that is bolstered with rocks on either side in many places. The rocks are less intrusive than walls of solid concrete and allow for some hiding places for lizards, ground squirrels and other small living things, and allow winter rains to percolate a bit more slowly into the ground I would imagine.

There is a slightly elevated path on both sides of Alameda Creek, and several over- and under-pass crossings. I saw several walkers, runners, bicycle riders, and dogs out for a walk with their owners this evening on both sides of the creek channel, and a few local denizens, like this squirrel up on a fence.

Wildlife Sightings:
7 dragonflies; 14 little brown jobs (LBJs); sound of woodpecker in tree, but couldn't see it; 1 mockingbird; 1 blue jay; 10 Canada geese; 2 hummingbirds; 1 black-crowned night heron; 2 crows; 16 sea gulls; 6 starlings; 4 red-winged blackbirds; 12 pigeons; 2 fuzzy caterpillars; 7 ducks; 1 bumblebee; 1 ground squirrel; 1 great egret