Say’s Phoebe – Luke Tiller
Sunday April 26th saw Catherine Hamilton, David Bell, Brittany O’Connor and I taking on a Birding Big Day in Los Angeles County. Our aim was to see or hear as many species of birds as possible in a 24hr period in order to raise money for the Pasadena Audubon Society. We started our day just before dawn and ended some eighteen exhausting hours later, well after the sun had gone down.
Our route planning was influenced as much by a desire not to just follow the typical route that most teams try but was also influenced by some scouting that we undertook pre-trip (though we managed to miss the two rarest birds that the group found whilst scouting: White-winged Scoter and Palm Warbler) . Our handy spreadsheet of stops helped keep our day on a airtight schedule and until we hit a rather sharp bump in the road we were a little ahead of it all day. Our main focus for much of the day was ruthlessly keeping on track and leaving sites with or without the species we needed from them once our allotted time was up: whether this was a two minute stop for a Canvasback or a thirty minute sweep of a renowned migrant trap.
I have to say that Big Days kind of go against my usual mode of birding. I like to bird locally and I like to thoroughly cover spots to make sure there is nothing there left unearthed. I soon opened my eyes though to the beauty and wonder of big days. It certainly doesn’t hurt that we had such a stunning visual backdrop to much of our explorations. In Los Angeles County you can easily go from shorebirds feeding on Grunion eggs, through standing amongst pines at 6000 plus feet looking at Clarke’s Nutcrackers and remnants of snow to enjoying views of beautiful desert birds like Scott’s Oriole and we did all that and more between sunrise and sunset.
Spotted Towhee – Luke Tiller
Highlights on the day included those incredible swarms of shorebirds at Playa and a beautiful Mojave Green Rattlesnake that was sauntering across a private road in the desert half-light. The only rare birds we found on the day were a couple of flyover Common Ground Doves along the San Gabriel River. There were however some other interesting sightings: a late Greater Scaup near Playa Del Rey, a lost Acorn Woodpecker out in the desert near Lancaster and a baby Le Contes Thrasher (a notoriously secretive bird) at Edwards Airforce Base.
Of course you always miss some easy birds out on a long day like this and as a professional hawk watcher it particularly burned to not have pulled out either an Osprey, Swainson’s Hawk or Golden Eagle somewhere along our route. We won’t even mention the White-crowned Sparrow one of our group had at an early stop but forgot to convey to the rest of the group!
It still seems incredible to me to think that you can see or hear over 200 species of bird in just one single county in under 24 hours. In fact right until the end of the day our team had seen or heard every bird together until one of us was distracted by a jogger who was keen to know why we were running around a park with binoculars. Personally I think our team worked particularly well together and our different skills coalesced nicely to bring together different key elements to the group.
Red-tailed Hawk – Luke Tiller
It was an amazingly fun day and showed off the outstanding diversity of habitat and birds that can be found in Los Angeles County nicely. Most outsiders when they think of LA think of city expanses, traffic and Hollywood. What they don’t think about are the majestic mountains, serene deserts as well as the river courses and green spaces where Angelenos play games, exercise, walk dogs and of course watch birds.
All in all a great days adventure. Even the bit where I learned how to rapidly change a tire on a Honda Odyssey! After carefully going over our list we discovered that in total we tallied 207 bird species (209 including non-countable birds: Yellow-chevroned Parakeet and Red-whiskered Bulbul).
The species list in full:
- Greater White-fronted Goose
- Snow Goose
- Ross’s Goose
- Cackling Goose
- Canada Goose
- Gadwall
- American Wigeon
- Mallard
- Blue-winged Teal
- Cinnamon Teal
- Northern Shoveler
- Northern Pintail
- Canvasback
- Redhead
- Ring-necked Duck
- Lesser Scaup
- Greater Scaup
- Surf Scoter
- Bufflehead
- Red-breasted Merganser
- Ruddy Duck
- Mountain Quail
- California Quail
- Common Loon
- Pied-billed Grebe
- Horned Grebe
- Eared Grebe
- Western Grebe
- Clark’s Grebe
- Brandt’s Cormorant
- Double-crested Cormorant
- Pelagic Cormorant
- Brown Pelican
- Least Bittern
- Great Blue Heron
- Great Egret
- Snowy Egret
- Green Heron
- Black-crowned Night-Heron
- White-faced Ibis
- Turkey Vulture
- White-tailed Kite
- Northern Harrier
- Cooper’s Hawk
- Red-shouldered Hawk
- Red-tailed Hawk
- Virginia Rail
- Sora
- Common Gallinule
- American Coot
- Black-necked Stilt
- American Avocet
- Black Oystercatcher
- Black-bellied Plover
- Semipalmated Plover
- Killdeer
- Spotted Sandpiper
- Greater Yellowlegs
- Willet
- Whimbrel
- Marbled Godwit
- Ruddy Turnstone
- Black Turnstone
- Surfbird
- Sanderling
- Dunlin
- Least Sandpiper
- Western Sandpiper
- Short-billed Dowitcher
- Long-billed Dowitcher
- Wilson’s Phalarope
- Red-necked Phalarope
- Bonaparte’s Gull
- Heermann’s Gull
- Ring-billed Gull
- Western Gull
- California Gull
- Least Tern
- Caspian Tern
- Forster’s Tern
- Royal Tern
- Elegant Tern
- Black Skimmer
- Rock Pigeon
- Band-tailed Pigeon
- Eurasian Collared-Dove
- Common Ground-Dove
- Mourning Dove
- Barn Owl
- Western Screech-Owl
- Great Horned Owl
- Northern Pygmy-Owl
- Burrowing Owl
- Lesser Nighthawk
- Common Poorwill
- Vaux’s Swift
- White-throated Swift
- Black-chinned Hummingbird
- Anna’s Hummingbird
- Allen’s Hummingbird
- Lewis’s Woodpecker
- Acorn Woodpecker
- Ladder-backed Woodpecker
- Nuttall’s Woodpecker
- Hairy Woodpecker
- White-headed Woodpecker
- Northern Flicker
- American Kestrel
- Merlin
- Peregrine Falcon
- Prairie Falcon
- Olive-sided Flycatcher
- Western Wood-Pewee
- Hammond’s Flycatcher
- Gray Flycatcher
- Pacific-slope Flycatcher
- Black Phoebe
- Say’s Phoebe
- Ash-throated Flycatcher
- Cassin’s Kingbird
- Western Kingbird
- Loggerhead Shrike
- Bell’s Vireo
- Cassin’s Vireo
- Hutton’s Vireo
- Warbling Vireo
- Steller’s Jay
- Western Scrub-Jay
- Clark’s Nutcracker
- American Crow
- Common Raven
- Horned Lark
- Northern Rough-winged Swallow
- Tree Swallow
- Violet-green Swallow
- Bank Swallow
- Barn Swallow
- Cliff Swallow
- Mountain Chickadee
- Oak Titmouse
- Bushtit
- Red-breasted Nuthatch
- White-breasted Nuthatch
- Pygmy Nuthatch
- Brown Creeper
- Rock Wren
- Canyon Wren
- House Wren
- Marsh Wren
- Bewick’s Wren
- Cactus Wren
- Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
- Ruby-crowned Kinglet
- Wrentit
- Western Bluebird
- Townsend’s Solitaire
- Swainson’s Thrush
- American Robin
- California Thrasher
- Le Conte’s Thrasher
- Northern Mockingbird
- European Starling
- American Pipit
- Cedar Waxwing
- Phainopepla
- Orange-crowned Warbler
- Nashville Warbler
- Common Yellowthroat
- American Redstart
- Yellow Warbler
- Yellow-rumped Warbler
- Black-throated Gray Warbler
- Townsend’s Warbler
- Hermit Warbler
- Wilson’s Warbler
- Yellow-breasted Chat
- Green-tailed Towhee
- Spotted Towhee
- Rufous-crowned Sparrow
- California Towhee
- Chipping Sparrow
- Black-chinned Sparrow
- Black-throated Sparrow
- Savannah Sparrow
- Fox Sparrow
- Song Sparrow
- Dark-eyed Junco
- Western Tanager
- Black-headed Grosbeak
- Lazuli Bunting
- Red-winged Blackbird
- Western Meadowlark
- Yellow-headed Blackbird
- Brewer’s Blackbird
- Great-tailed Grackle
- Brown-headed Cowbird
- Hooded Oriole
- Bullock’s Oriole
- Scott’s Oriole
- House Finch
- Purple Finch
- Cassin’s Finch
- Pine Siskin
- Lesser Goldfinch
- Lawrence’s Goldfinch
- American Goldfinch
- House Sparrow
Under Clear Skies 