While on a business trip to southern California I realized I would have an afternoon free, so I decided to plan for a bit of birding to try to add some statebirds to my CA list. My CA list was at 351, which is pretty good for an easterner I guess, with only a few rarities. So since winter birding in CA usually features a number of rarities, many of which stick around for a while, I was hopeful there would be at least a few to chase after. With a bit of research on the CA listserves and e-bird I found quite a number of eastern rarities in the area. I could try for a couple at dawn before work that day, and then mapped out an afternoon with an additional 6 target birds as possible new statebirds.
I started predawn at a park with an overwintering Parula Warbler and Red-naped Woodpecker. With good directions I got to the right locations for the birds, but couldn’t find either one. No worries though, as I had 6 more to try for in the afternoon. Then with work done at 1:30 I started my afternoon birding route. My first stop was a park with an overwintering Eastern Phoebe. My directions weren’t the best, and it took me an extra 15 minutes to find the right part of the park, but I eventually found the spot, but only found Black Phoebes. Hmm, thought that one was pretty likely. Next stop was a small park with 3 overwintering targets – Solitary Sandpiper, Ovenbird, and Least Flycatcher. I quickly found the Solitary Sandpiper in a small retention basin. And then got to the spot where the Ovenbird was typically seen and I was lucky enough to found it quickly as well. But I spent the next 45 minutes trying for the Least Flyc unsuccessfully. Next stop was a park with a Palm Warbler. But despite good microdirections, I couldn’t find the warbler. The last stop was a small suburban park with a very reliable Dusky-Capped Flycatcher. I arrived about 5 PM and found the park full of families playing ball, having picnics, playing music, etc. I spent a half-hearted 20 minutes there before I gave up on seeing the bird in all the hullabaloo going on in the park.
That gave me only 2 out of my 8 targets – I usually do much better than that. I think part of the reason for my lack of success is that I relied more on e-Bird and less on the listserves than I normally do. It seems that the e-Bird sightings are less likely to have the microdirections and details as to how to find the birds than in listserve posts. So as a result maybe I didn’t have the best locations for some of these. Plus, on e-Bird I don’t think you can report that you did not see a given bird. So if the most recent sighting of a bird on e-Bird was a week ago, you don’t know if others have looked for it unsuccessfully in the last week, or if others found it but just didn’t report it to e-Bird. Of course you don’t always see negative posts on the listserves either, but at least it’s possible to report that you looked for something and didn’t see it, or saw it on your umpteenth try. My takeaway is that I need to continue to use both e-Bird and the listserves on these statebirding trips, but don’t rely on e-Bird too much by itself.
My statebird maps for Solitary Sandpiper and Ovenbird are inserted below. Solitary is a rarity to look for in the southwest, and now CA is my second state (following NV) where I’ve seen it outside its typical range. Though I still need it as a more regular migrant in 5 central states. By comparison, Ovenbird isn’t necessarily known as much of a western vagrant, and CA is my first state for this species as a rarity. And I need that one too in a number of states in its more normal range.
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