With an upcoming trip to the Los Angeles area in late June I set up a CA Needs Alert in e-Bird to see if there might be some possible target birds in the area. My CA statelist was pretty good at 376, so most likely any bird I needed would have to be pretty unusual if not a real rarity. The first bird I noticed on the Needs Alert was Reddish Egret, which seems to be regular but seen in small numbers at the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve in Orange County south of LA. I’ve seen posts about this bird at Bolsa Chica for a number of years, but have never been to this spot to give it a try. So with a couple hours available for late afternoon birding on the day I would arrive, this one seemed like a possibility. Unfortunately there were no other targets being reported south of LA, so Reddish Egret looked to be my only possible CA statebird for this trip. But then just a couple days before my trip both a Hooded Warbler and a Red-eyed Vireo were reported at Huntington Central Park which is just a 10-minute drive from Bolsa Chica. So if I was successful quickly at Bolsa Chica, I could also get to the Park and maybe have a shot at 3 new CA statebirds.
My flight landed at LAX a few minutes early
(yeah!), and I quickly checked e-Bird for updates. Alas neither the Warbler nor the Vireo were
found that morning despite lots of searching.
And the last post of the Egret was now 2 days before. I was less worried about that one since I
would imagine they are around most every day.
But I worried that the Warbler and Vireo had moved on. Even so, 1 new CA statebird would be nice. And if I had the time I would still head to
the Park anyway.
Most of the Reddish Egret sightings were
from waterways at the southern end of Bolsa Chica, so I headed right to that
part of the Reserve as soon as I arrived in the area. Since Reddish Egrets are typically easy to spot
given their very active feeding style, I was cautiously optimistic that I could
find one quickly, and then head right to Huntington Central Park. But so much for my optimism. My first stop was the “Walk Bridge”, with
suitable habitat in all directions. But
there were no Reddish Egrets. A silver
lining though was hearing and seeing numerous “Belding’s” Savannah Sparrows in
the marsh nearby – only my second time seeing this race. (One day it will be a new species, right?) Then I walked over to the “Full Tidal Area”,
with more great habitat, but again no target bird. Next stop was a walk over to the outer
channel north of the Walk Bridge, but still no Egret. Though here I heard and saw several Ridgway’s
Rails – a very nice consolation. But
after lots of scanning, and a couple miles of walking, I found no Reddish
Egrets in the area where they were most often recently reported on e-Bird.
The day before my trip I had called the
Reserve to get their advice and the person on the line said he typically saw
them in the northern end of Bolsa Chica.
But because there were few e-Bird posts of the bird from this area, I
thought this this area would be a lower priority. Though now that I had struck out in the area with
most of the recent e-Bird sightings, it was time to head to the northern portion
of the Reserve. This part of the
wetlands is visible from the Pacific Coast Highway, though there are no options
for parking along the road. So I would
need to drive north past the wetlands, park at the headquarters, then walk back
south to check out this area. I had
driven no more than a half mile when up ahead I noticed a wading bird “dancing”
in the wetlands. I slowed a bit when I
got even with it and sure enough it was a Reddish Egret. Wasn’t the best of views, but at least I
didn’t need it for a lifebird.
I’ve now seen Reddish Egret in 4
southeastern states (how come I’ve missed it in MS?), and now CA as a rare but
regular species (see my statebird map below).
If I had only taken the advice of the
Reserve employee I may well have gotten it right away. Though if I did I might have missed the
Belding’s Sparrows and Ridgway’s Rails.
I thought about stopping and walking back to get a better look, but I
still wanted to head to Huntington Central Park to try for the other targets,
even if they were long shots. So I
continued on to the Park, content with a good enough look at the Egret.
Both the Hooded Warbler and Red-Eyed Vireo
had been mostly reported from the eastern side of the “Island” at Huntington
Central Park. Though the Warbler was
also sometimes seen on the western side.
And in most cases the bird was in full song. Of course I first thought the “Island” would
be land in the middle of a lake or pond, so I wondered how I would get to
it. But based on the descriptions in some
posts I wondered if it was an “island” of trees and brush. With some Googlemaps research it looked like
there was a wetlands in the middle of the park, which was indeed heavily
forested. So maybe both guesses were
right. But it was a pretty large park, and
with no positive posts from that day, I wasn’t too optimistic. Instead I figured I would just bird the park
in general and enjoy seeing some western species I don’t see too often. And if I do see one of the rarities then that
would an unexpected bonus.
I arrived at the parking lot on the western
side of the park and soon noticed a photographer with a long lens. As I always say “bird the birders”, so I went
up to him to see if he had any updates on the rarities. Instead he was just a photographer, not
familiar with the Warbler and Vireo, and he told me he was there “to photograph
the Whydah”. Just then a male Pin-tailed
Whydah flew into the tree right above us.
Although my first thought was Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, I realized that
it was my first ever Whydah. Not a
countable bird, but maybe someday…
I then started birding around the perimeter
of what I guessed to be the “Island”, starting from the west side and working
my way clockwise to the east. I
eventually got to the east side but didn’t have any sightings of the rarities. Though I did run into a pair of Scaly-breasted
Munias (formerly called Nutmeg Mannikins) – only the second time I’ve seen
them. I decided to call it quits, and
had walked only a short way back toward the car when I heard some harsh chips
coming from a wet area in the underbrush.
I quickly went to my iPhone and played the call notes of the Hooded
Warbler and they were a perfect match. I
continued to play the calls and the bird seemed to respond. Although I never saw the bird, it kept calling
from a short distance into woods, again seemingly in response to my tape. Although I felt good that this could be the
Hooded Warbler, it had not been seen that morning, and it was never reported as
giving call notes. So I guessed it was just
some regular western bird I wasn’t familiar with. But two days later I noticed an e-Bird report
that the Hooded Warbler was re-found, just giving its chip notes, and from the
same area where I had my observation. So
I decided to go with my initial impressions and added Hooded Warbler to my CA
statelist.
I’ve now seen Hooded Warbler in 30 states –
several on the periphery of its normal range like OK and MN, and several as a
rarity like ME, NH, VT, and now CA.
Though I still need it in a few states in the southeast in the regular
part of its range.
I was just about back to my car when I
noticed several sparrow-sized birds fly into some reeds at the edge of the
wetlands – more Munias. I stopped to
watch the birds feeding on seeds at the top of the reeds and more and more birds
continued to join them. Eventually I
counted 35 Munias in the flock. And at
one point I noticed a different bird at the edge of the flock that reminded me
of a female Bobolink – it was a female Orange Bishop. Another first for me. So along with the Whydah, that gave me 3 established
exotics for the Park – though only 1 is countable at this point.
All in all it was a most successful couple
of stops. Not only did I add 2 birds to
my CA statelist (now at 378), but I also saw my first Pin-tailed Whydah and
Orange Bishop, and got good looks at both the Belding’s Sparrow and Ridgway’s
Rail.
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