Many are in breeding plumage. Some American avocets, black-necked stilts, and killdeer are local residents. A good viewing spot is Palo Alto Baylands, off of Highway 101. You can see shorebirds at the north end of the bay too, at the new San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge. A three-mile hike, part of the San Francisco Bay Trail, takes you out to the wetlands, where you may see American white pelicans, canvasbacks, and scaups.
Harbor seals haul out here too.
The Academy's Manzanita Project , an image database of California plants and animals compiled from slides from the museum's collections, has contributed over 4,000 images to CalPhotos to date. Vernal pools are starting to bloom with wildflowers at the Nature Conservancy's Jepson Prairie. The prairie is home to a number of rare and endangered species, including Solano grass and the Delta ground beetle , which are found nowhere else. May California buckeyes are blooming in candleabras of pink or white flowers, attracting the insects that will provide quick protein for nesting songbirds. Don't be fooled by the buckeye's beautiful flowers' its seeds are poisonous.