Eastern Yellow Wagtail!!!

Lifer Eastern Yellow Wagtail in my 5MR!!

I love it when birding serves up a surprise. While I was out of town recently, a friend found a pectoral Sandpiper in my 5MR. It’s a bird I see almost, but not, every year in my 5MR. So it’s a good enough bird to go find whenever one is found in my 5MR. Upon coming back to town, I headed out after dinner to see if the Pectoral Sandpiper was still around. It had been in an area near the Ballona Freshwater Marsh that was flooded with water during our winter rains, and had retained much of its water until early summer. This was great news for migrating shorebirds, because they’re much more likely to stop when there is water around. And despite the lack of rain around here, the area had magically sprouted a few puddles of water in the last week or so.

When I arrived, I scanned the area and didn’t see the Pectoral. I did notice a bird with a brown-ish back and cap pumping its tail that I first thought was an American Pipit. But as it moved around, I saw that this bird’s underside (chest, belly, undertail) was obviously yellow, the chest had no streaking, and the bird had an eyebrow (supercilium, if you must) that was decidedly thick and white. All of that ruled out American Pipit for me.

A wrong turn in Alaska produces birder delight in Los Angeles

I snapped some photos, and sent out an alert to the LA County bird nerd WhatsApp suggesting that I’d possibly found a Yellow Wagtail. The immediate responses confirmed my suspicion. So I continued watching the bird, determined to keep my eyes on it in case anyone was able to show up before sunset (which was in 30-40 minutes).

The bird was feeding on bare dirt near small puddles of water, and amongst baby pickleweed plants that have sprouted where the seasonal pond had been for winter and spring. It bobbed its tail regularly as it moved around, and often moved in herky-jerky spurts. When feeding amongst the pickleweed, it sometimes would disappear within the plants, other times would walk on top. It spent more of its time in the pickleweed than on the bare dirt. At one point it spread its tail, and I noticed white outer tail feathers.

A local birder and 5MR enthusiast showed up, and got to see the Yellow Wagtail. We watched it for about 10 minutes. As the sun set, the area in which it was grazing fell out of sun and into shadow. At this point, the bird flew south away from us. We did not see where, or how far, it went.

This is just the third LA County record (in eBird) for Eastern Yellow Wagtail. [I guess it could be a Western Yellow Wagtail, but that’s much less likely. The Eastern birds breed in Alaska. There are scattered West Coast reports. And the bird gave a burrrpsy call when it flushed after being harassed by a Killdeer that suggests Eastern Yellow Wagtail.] The last sighting was in September 2007 at Malibu Lagoon. Before that, one was seen in September 1987, again in Malibu Lagoon. It’s such a rare sighting anywhere in the lower 48 that birders from all across the country have been flying in to see it.

This now gives me an LA County first sighting (Sedge Wren), a second sighting (Bar-tailed Godwit), and a third sighting (Eastern Yellow Wagtail), with two of those in my 5MR.