Month: June 2024

Yellow-footed Gull

Broad-billed Hummingbird

The first few months of 2024 have been busy at work. That means I’ve had less time for birding. Having less time has inspired me to go on chases when I get the chance. Nothing clears the head of the stress and drag of work like heading out into the world to find a good bird. And there have been some good birds to find around here this year. So far, I’ve added two new birds to my 5MR tally, sending me officially over 300 according to eBird (and up to 309 if you count exotics/escapees). I’ve also added 7 new birds to my LA County list. Four of those were new to my ABA area list (that is, they were birds I’d seen before, but only outside the U.S.). Two birds were world lifers – I’ll cover them in a separate post.

5MR Lifers

Close to home, I’ve added two new birds to my five-mile radius list so far in 2024. The first was a Common Murre, a black and white seabird that is the closest looking thing we have to a penguin in these parts. They don’t often come close to shore, but in February I lucked into one at the Playa Del Rey jetty. I had spent the morning driving out to Glendora to find a Broad-billed Hummingbird (see below). On my way back, I decided to see if a Long-tailed Duck that had been spending this winter in the Marina del Rey channel was still around. Because that duck had been reliably staying along the northern jetty, I decided to park over there this day. As I walked out to the jetty, ubiquitous LA Birder Tom Miko was walking in with his scope. We chatted, and he asked if the Common Murre out by the breakwater was a known, continuing bird. It wasn’t. So he generously walked back out to the end of the jetty with me, and got the murre in his scope. It was swimming around at the end of the breakwater, barely in ID range. A couple more Common Murre showed up at the jetty during spring this year. Not sure what explains the irruption (several were seen from land along the LA coast this winter), but it was a nice addition to my 5MR list. 

Common Murre

Virginia’s Warbler in Bottlebrush

The second addition to my 5MR list was a wayward warbler in May. One Saturday, word went out one that a Virginia’s Warbler had been spotted at a hummingbird garden at Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area. Virginia’s Warblers typically summer in pinyon / juniper / oak habitat of the interior Southwest. They are rare in LA County, more likely to be found in fall than in spring. So when I heard one was 15 minutes away, I hopped in my car and headed over. The finder, Mitchell Bailey, was still at the bottlebrush where the bird was making occasional appearances. I didn’t have to wait long before it showed. It moved a bit more deliberately through the bushes than the Townsend’s and Orange-crowned warblers that were present. And it had a frustrating tendency of staying on the back side of the bush. This is the 23rd species of warbler I’ve seen in my 5MR.

LA County Lifer Hummingbird

I don’t do all my birding inside my 5MR. From time to time, a good bird will be found further afield, and I’ll seize the excuse to explore somewhere new. In the middle of February, a homeowner with a great garden of native plants and feeders reported that a Broad-billed Hummingbird was a regular visitor to the front yard. These are beautiful hummingbirds, with a green back, blue-green iridescent chest and throat, and a bill with a fiery-orange base and black tip. It’s common in central and northern Mexico, and is a regular summer resident in southern Arizona. That’s where I’d seen my first Broad-billed, in the legendary Madera Canyon on a 2019 trip with my Dad. I arrived at the reported suburban stakeout at 9:30am on a Saturday morning. Within 10 minutes, the magical hummingbird was visiting the flowers in the front yard. It would feed, then perch for some photos, and then zip across the street. 

Colorful & confiding

The other new LA County birds for the year were the Winter Wren, Hepatic Tanager I saw in January, some Sagebrush Sparrows (world lifer!) I found in the Antelope Valley, the Yellow-footed Gull described below, and two crazy birds I saw in one week (Tropical Parula and Yellow-headed Caracara).

ABA Lifer: Yellow-footed Gull

Gulls can be hard. At first, they basically all look the same: gray backs, white bellies, and a yellow bill. But it doesn’t take long to confidently separate the adults amongst the 9 regular gull species we have in L.A. County. Size, bill markings, the darkness of the gray on the back, and leg color matter, as do subtler features like eye color and the tips of the primary feathers. Yet, the more you learn, the less you seem to know when it comes to gulls. After you start paying attention,  you realize gulls come in a thousand slightly different variations. Part of this is because most go through three or four molt cycles before they reach adult plumage. In addition, their propensity for hybridizing makes gull ID quite a challenge. 

Fortunately, a recent lost gull that turned up in L.A. County wasn’t that hard to pick out. A Yellow-footed Gull was found out east at the Puddingstone Reservoir in Bonelli Park. Yellow-footed Gull used to be a Western Gull, but it was split back in the 1980s into its own species. The distinguishing feature of the Yellow-footed Gull is its yellow legs (they couldn’t call it a Yellow-legged Gull since there already is a European gull by that name). It’s range is restricted to the Gulf of California, though some occasionally show up at the Salton Sea. Seeing them this far north is quite rare. All the other gulls at the reservoir were either California Gulls (paler gray back, a bit smaller) or Ring-billed Gulls (smaller, distinct bill). The Yellow-footed Gull was conveniently perched on a buoy not far from shore when I drove up. I snapped a couple of photos, chatted with the other birders present, and called it a morning. It wasn’t a lifer – I’d seen them almost 30 years ago during a camping trip to Baja long before I was a birder (photos from my trip showed a group of them together with some Brown Pelicans).