I’ve recently joined a group of crazy birders who try to tally as many bird species as possible in each of California’s 58 counties. The neat part of county listing is that even a very common species such as a House Finch “means” something – at least 58 times. Another bonus is looking forward to seeing every part of the state.
When my friend Jennifer from the Bay Area told me she would be in southern California for a conference, I couldn’t think of a better reason to chase some birds in neighboring counties. Jennifer is also into the county listing game and we have enjoyed birding together a few times, helping each other on our county lists.
I left home early Saturday morning and headed up to Los Angeles. I missed one of my target birds (a reported Broad-winged Hawk) but found many other good birds. Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve in Los Angeles County is a vast park with lots of area to cover. Native scrub, ponds and open space hold quite a variety of wildlife. I enjoyed listening to California Thrashers singing from within the bushes as I walked some of the trails finding regular species such as Lesser Goldfinch, Red-tailed Hawk and Bushtit.
Bette Davis Picnic Area along the Los Angeles River is a neat little place right next to the freeway in Burbank. A Eurasian Wigeon had been reported and was still there when I arrived. The river is lined with concrete at this area so I was very surprised at the number of birds. A small flock of Black-necked Stilts took flight when a Peregrine Falcon unsuccessfully swooped through looking for a meal.
A couple of stops in the late afternoon at small parks around Claremont and San Bernardino County let me tally a few new county birds. My favorite of these was a Taiga subspecies Merlin that flew into the top of a tree at John Galvin Park. The setting sun really lit up this bird for a nice photo.
Roughly 12 hours after leaving the house I met up with Jennifer and one of her friends. We headed up into the mountains in search of owls and were met with gusty cold wind. We managed to hear one Western Screech-Owl and one Great Horned Owl through the wind but, unfortunately, were not able to see them.
On Sunday I went around San Diego County with my birding pal Steve, looking for reported rare birds and we were fortunate to find three of them: Chestnut-sided Warbler, Palm Warbler and a Eurasian Wigeon. Thanks to my buddy Jay for helping us with some of the finer points of gull identification. We identified Thayer’s, Glaucous-winged, California and Glaucous-winged x Western hybrid Gulls at Lower Otay Reservoir. The similarities between immature Thayer’s and California Gulls are amazing. Leg color and bill color are the keys to pulling out a Thayer’s from a group of Cali’s.
Photos of many of these birds are posted on my web site at http://tinyurl.com/69xyqgm
