Is this a Northern Mockingbird?

By J.D. Lasica

This summer and fall, the most melodious bird I’ve ever heard kept a regular vigil outside my home here in the San Francisco East Bay.

I’m really curious if anyone can identify it. Take a listen:

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Some observations:

• It spend a lot of time in a tree next door, and I snapped the photos above (but needed a more powerful lens) while it flitted up in the air about six feet and then descended on the top branch again.

• It was as nocturnal as I am, with much of its chirping and warbling taking place between midnight and 2 am. The sounds were fantastically primal, with at least a dozen variations coming from the same bird.

Leif Utne, who’s become something of a naturalist up in the Pacific Northwest, offered to take a crack at this a while back, and one Twitter friend sent along these links:

• Northern Mockingbird, from Field Guide to Birds of North America, which notes that its terrain includes Northern California.

• Know your garden bird song (Guardian) — the song thrush could be another candidate.

So, mockingbird, or not?

Highlights of California’s Tri-Valley region from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

Here’s a short chat I had with Amy Blaschka, President and CEO of the Tri-Valley Convention & Visitors Bureau, about the Tri-Valley region (where I live), located in the San Francisco East Bay. The Tri-Valley consists of Pleasanton, Livermore, Danville, San Ramon and Dublin, and it’s best known for the Livermore wine region, golf, an amazing array of parks and sports fields, and the historic downtowns of some of the cities, especially Pleasanton.

As Wikipedia points out:

In the 1850s, the town was nicknamed “The Most Desperate Town in the West” and it was ruled by bandits and desperados. Main Street shootouts were not uncommon. Banditos such as Joaquin Murrieta, upon whom the legend of Zorro is based, would ambush prospectors on their way back from the gold rush fields and then seek refuge in Pleasanton. This reputation passed, and in 1917 Pleasanton became the backdrop for the film “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.”

Pleasanton was among the cities named in CNN Money Magazine’s list of “The Best Places to Live” in 2010, and was also named one of “Americans’ Top Hometown Spots” in the United States in 2009 by Forbes. Also, notably, late night host Craig Ferguson took some lighthearted jabs at Pleasanton after he passed through town.

Watch, embed or download the video on Vimeo

I‘ve given a final update to my TypePad site Darknet.com (see it on Amazon), and as regular readers know, my blogging these days takes place at Socialbrite.org and Socialmedia.biz.

To undecided voters deciding whether to re-elect Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, I have one question: What do you know about Republican candidate David Harmer?

Are you aware that he favors privatizing Social Security, even after the Wall Street meltdown (no surprise, given his discredited deregulate-everything philosophy)? Or that he has spoken at a local Tea Party event? Or that he wrote in favor of abolishing public schools and returning education to “the way things worked through the first century of American nationhood” in an op-ed piece in the San Francisco Chronicle in 2000, a position he has not backed away from? Pleasanton has some of the best public schools in the state, and his rants against “socialism in education” have no place here.

My family members are canvassing our Pleasanton neighborhood so that Rep. McNerney, one of the most capable centrist members of Congress, isn’t turned out in an unfocused anger at everything about Washington. Electing Mr. Harmer and a return to Wall Street rule is not where we want to take this country in the next two years. Mr. Harmer is far out of step with the voters in this centrist district.

• Jerry McNerney endorsed by veterans, Republicans

Sen. Boxer on reforming the filibuster from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

Yesterday I headed into San Francisco and saw Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., speak to a packed gallery of 350 or so people at the Commonwealth Club of California (I’m a member). She’s in a hotly contested reelection campaign against Carly Fiorina.

As is the case with popular speakers, audience members had to write their questions on a slip of paper and the moderator has to choose which ones to ask. The second question asked was the one I posed: Given the unprecedented use of the filibuster by the Republicans in the current Senate session, hat is your position on reforming or eliminating the filibuster?

Here’s the video I took of Sen. Boxer’s two-minute answer. She said she supports reforming the filibuster rules when the next Senate assembles to set its rules in two ways: requiring 55 votes instead of 60, and requiring senators to actually filibuster on their feet.

Now, we need a majority of senators to agree on the same reforms.

Watch, download or embed the video on Vimeo

My thanks to the Commonwealth Club for allowing the public to videotape and photograph their speakers.