Baird’s Sandpiper and Northern Gannet, August 2017 - Can you Guess the Unlikely Location?

If you had to guess – what state would I be in to add both Baird’s Sandpiper and Northern Gannet as new statebirds in August? 

Baird’s Sandpiper is a rather common migrant throughout the middle of the country, and a rarer but regular migrant elsewhere across the US.  As shown in my Baird’s statebird map below, I’ve seen this species throughout most of its regular migration range, except for LA.  Plus I need it in several southeastern and southwestern states, and NY, where it’s a rarer migrant.

By comparison Gannet is typically only seen in summer along the north Atlantic coast, but is a regular winter bird throughout the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.  I’ve seen Gannet in each of the Atlantic coast states but only in the Gulf in FL and AL. 

So perhaps the most likely single location to add both of these birds as new statebirds would be LA, though it would require a very rare summer sighting of the Gannet.

But the real answer is – I was birding in CA, and added both stakeout birds to my CA statelist in August 2017 at the end of a business trip to the San Francisco bay area.  Now for the story –

An extremely rare Gannet had been reported recently at Devil’s Slide County Park, most often seen perching on Egg Rock off-shore with Cormorants.  This is likely the same Gannet that was found earlier in the year farther down the coast at Ano Nuevo State Park, which preferred to perch on a rock some 2.2 miles offshore among a colony of Western Gulls.  That is except for the day I was there in March 2017.  At least Egg Rock was much closer to shore – a mere 1,400 ft or a quarter mile away.

Up to 4 juvenile Baird’s Sandpipers had been reported at Venice Beach a short distance south of the Gannet location.  I had birded that spot back in March, finding a pair of Glaucous Gulls to my CA list, plus finding an impressive flock of 23 Snowy Plovers.  The Baird’s were reported near the outlet of Pilarcitos Creek. 

My plan was to finish my last day of my business trip, and in route to the SFO airport, first stop at Devil’s Slide.  Then I would head south to Venice Beach, accessing the beach from the end of Venice Boulevard, and then drive to my hotel near SFO.

I arrived at Devil’s Slide right on schedule in the late afternoon, and walked right to the spot where I could see Egg Rock.  It was a cloudy day so I wouldn’t have to contend with looking into the western sun.  Plus earlier I had traded e-mails with local birders to make sure the rock was close enough to be able to spot the Gannet with binocs.  That was all good news.  The bad news was that there were almost no birds perched on the rock at all – at most only about 25 Cormorants and obviously no Gannet, presumably because the birds were out feeding instead of roosting.  So I began to scan the water in the area hoping to find the bird foraging nearby.  The water was covered in an impressive number of Murres, Cormorants, and gulls, but still no Gannet.  I continued to search the water and the rock for about an hour, but the best highlight was 3 whales that passed by quite close to the coast. 

Having no luck with the Gannet, I decided to head south for a quick try for the Baird’s, and then come back to Devil’s Slide for a second attempt at the Gannet.  Just 15 minutes later I had parked my car at Venice Beach and walked toward the mouth of Pilarcitos Creek.  But there were no shorebirds in site.  And in fact there was no habitat that would support foraging Baird’s.  Nothing looked like the habitat in the photos I had seen on eBird so I figured I must be in the wrong spot.  I looked to the south and saw much better habitat in the stretch of the creek that paralleled the coastline.  But how do you access that area?  On GoogleMaps I could see what looked like a trail leading to the coast from the end of Beach Avenue so I decided to give that a try.

After a short drive I was on Beach Avenue and sure enough found a trail heading to the coast.  And soon I was on top of the bluff looking down to the creek bed.  I quickly spotted some shorebirds down below me but they were just Western Sands, Semi Plovers, and Killdeer.  Now I was wishing I had brought my scope to look farther south.  I continued to walk a bit farther south and got a different viewpoint and quickly spotted a larger peep standing on a drier part of the creek bed – a Baird’s Sandpiper!  Although I wanted to stay to look for the other Baird’s, it had taken me an hour to find the right spot at Venice Beach, and I still needed to make a second try for the Gannet.  So I decided to head back to the car, but first got this distant picture of the Baird’s holding my phone up to my binocs.

Twenty minutes later I was back at Egg Rock, but unfortunately there were still just a few Cormorants perched there.  Then I spotted a bit of white on the rock which was most likely just a partially obscured Western Gull.  But since it was the only white bird there I focused on it to be sure.  Just as I was concentrating on the Gull the Gannet flew right through my binocular field – between me and the rock.  I watched it fly around near Egg Rock for the next 5 minutes, though it never landed.  I was able to get several videos of the bird holding my phone up to my binocs – here is the shortest one.

I have to ask myself how would a Gannet get to the CA coast from its regular range in the Atlantic?  Would one fly to the Pacific via the Arctic?  Or would it perhaps take a more direct but landlocked route somewhere across North America?  Who’s to say.

In any case, sure is nice when it all comes together, especially for the extremely rare Gannet.  And adding 2 new birds brings my CA statelist to 389.