Category: Listing (Page 1 of 10)

5MR: 2025 Recap and 2026 Targets

January 9, 2026 / KDL / 0 Comments

Sooty Tern, for some reason on a Los Angeles beach in my 5MR

2025 Recap

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been doing 5MR birding for 8 years now. It’s similarly hard to believe that I’m in my 50s and have been birding for over a dozen years. In the Trumpocene, reality is hard to believe.

2025 was another great year in my 5MR circle. Big picture, I ended up seeing 235 species of birds. That tied my 2024 record. I tried hard in December to top that, but I couldn’t make it happen. The tally included seven species I’d never seen before in my circle.

Lesser Black-backed Gull – This was one of two new birds that was on my 2025 target list. It was found in January by ace birder Andy Birch, who owed me one for finding a Sedge Wren in his 5MR a few years ago. Lesser Black-backed Gulls have been showing up in increasing, but small, numbers in LA in recent years. This bird ended up staying until at least March. Another one (or the same bird?) was back on the same Dockweiler Beach in July. It hung around until September. We’ll see if these become more regular.
Least Flycatcher – In February, a birder found an empid at Kenneth Hahn park. These are notoriously difficult to ID. Luckily, this bird was vocal. The call clinched the ID as a Least Flycatcher. I was able to visit the next day and found the active and uncooperative bird.
Red-crowned Amazon – From fall to early spring, a gaggle of parrots sometimes shows up in the mornings at the Village Green. You never know what you’ll see amongst the parrot flocks here in LA. Red-crowned Amazon is a species that, in my mind, is wrongly identified quite frequently on the west side. I’d never never confidently seen one until one day in March, when I did. It’s my 7th species of parrot/parakeet in my circle.
Franklin’s Gull – Walter Lamb does great work protecting Ballona wetland habitat in my circle. As he does, he frequently finds good birds. In March, he found a Franklin’s Gull in April at a seasonal pond next to the freshwater marsh. I saw the black-headed little guy the next morning. It gave out a few calls, took flight, and flew off toward the beach, not to be seen in the area again.
Sooty Tern – Before July, a Sooty Tern had never been seen in LA County. Unsurprising for a tropical seabird. The morning after one was seen in Orange County, Chris Dean smartly headed to Dockweiler Beach. Remarkably, she found the Sooty Tern amongst a big flock of Elegant and Royal Terns. I was looking through a flock of Caspian Terns on the salt pan, and quickly made my way to the beach for this improbable bird.
Scarlet Tanager – God bless the unobsessed but observant. A sharp-eyed Culver City resident photographed an unusual tanager at Lindberg Park In November. The nerds identified it as a Scarlet Tanager, an eastern U.S. bird that’s only seen every other year in LA. Then again, there may be more of them, because this bird was hard to see buried in the ficus trees. And then, five days after it was found, there were two of them in the same park!
Rose-breasted Grosbeak – This was the other species on my target list that I found in 2025. I was exploring patches of park I’d never birded before, trying to turn up something new in December. This hunt turned up nothing new until I found this bird. I was walking a sliver of park next to LAX along Imperial Highway. There, with a group of House Finches on electrical wire, was a Rose-breasted Grosbeak. And with that, I tied my yearly record with 235 and pushed my 5MR life list to 314/323.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Red-crowned Amazon

Scarlet Tanager

Lesser Black-backed Gull

Honorable Mention – One rainy day in November, Sara Boscoe found a Bay-breasted Warbler in front of the high school my oldest kid attended. This is a rare warbler for LA, and would’ve been a new bird for my 5MR. But, alas, it was about 960 feet outside of my circle. I could see the edge of my circle across the school’s parking lot. This close call would be bested in January 2026 when a Lucy’s Warbler was found by Chris Dean at the lake at SoFi Stadium. This bird was 740 feet outside my circle. As tempting as it may be to add these to my arbitrary circle list, I’m a 5MR purist. Close to my living couch, for sure, but not close enough.

2026 5MR Targets

I think I might widen my horizons in 2026 after 2 consecutive years of 5MR-focused birding. Variety is good for the soul. Still, I know myself. I’ll be spending most of my time birding my circle. Here are some species I want and hope to find. Some are holdovers from previous lists, others are new.

Magnolia Warbler – There are still quite a few warblers I haven’t seen in my 5MR. I’m giving up on finding a waterthrush because the riparian habitat in my circle doesn’t have good flowing water. I will now be searching the trees for arguably the most stunning breeding-plumage warbler of them all.
Painted Bunting – This was a target bird last year. I remain hopeful that I can find one of these, probably near the Ballona Freshwater Marsh. A return to the days of easier access to the backside of the marsh would help.
Broad-winged Hawk – A holdover target that seems like an inevitability. For a few moments in October, I thought I had one in my sights, but it was a Red-shouldered Hawk.
Gray Catbird – One of these showed up on UCLA’s campus this winter, not far from my circle, so I’m not crazy to have it as a target.
Chimney Swift – Like I said last year, this is about patience and ID skills, because they’re certainly amongst the Vaux Swifts migrating through my circle.
Glaucous Gull – I added two gulls to my 5MR list in 2025, and a third new one (Laughing Gull) in the first week of 2026. I’m not done, as there are several more gulls that could wander into my circle. The biggest of them all would be a Glaucous Gull.
Red-necked Stint – Now that I have a scope, I can get better looks at all the peeps in the salt pan and maybe pick out something delicious like a Red-necked Stint.
Tricolored Heron – You can see these birds each year at Bolsa Chica in Orange County, but not since 1981 has a Tricolored Heron been seen in the Ballona wetlands. This is the year one of those birds get wanderlust and heads north.
Red-throated Pipit – Last winter, I picked out a Siberian Pipit amongst the American Pipits. The next challenge is to find a Red-throated Pipit in the flock. Pipit numbers are low this winter, so this’ll have to be a fall 2026 find.
Sandhill Crane – One of these big birds was seen in Ballona Creek back in 2015. That’s the only eBird sighting within 20 miles of my living room couch ever. We’ll make it my longshot target for the year.

Face-melting Magnolia Warbler, Bartlett Island, Maine

5MR: 2024 Recap and 2025 Targets

January 18, 2025 / KDL / 0 Comments

Eastern Yellow Wagtail, Ballona Freshwater Marsh

2024 5MR Recap

It was a busy year work-wise. I didn’t do any travel outside the United States, and not much within it. That meant that I was around my 5MR most of the time. Put that together with a big year for vagrants in LA county, and I ended up with a 5MR record for species in a year. All told, I saw 235 species within a five mile radius of my living room couch. (If you had asked me before I became a birder how many species you can see within 5 miles of your house, I’d have said 30, 40, or maybe 50). I also added 8 new species to my 5MR life list, bringing it to 315. Two of them were on my 2024 targets list. Here’s the breakdown of the new additions.

Common Murre – I picked up my first 5MR lifer in February, when a Common Murre spent a couple of days swimming around the Marina del Rey breakwater. It’s an unusual bird to spot from land, but one I expected to eventually add to the list.
Virginia’s Warbler – In May, I brought my 5MR warbler list to 23 species when a Virginia’s Warbler showed up at Kenneth Hahn Park. This kicked off a run of 4 months with 4 new 5MR birds. Of my 8 new 5MR birds, this is the only one not found in the Ballona area. God bless the creek and marsh.
Little Blue Heron – This one was on my target list. I’ve tried many times before to turn a Snowy Egret into a Little Blue Heron. This one, with its yellowish legs and blue tipped primaries, did the trick.
Ruff – I kicked myself when word of a Ruff at the Ballona salt pan went out one afternoon. Just 30 minutes before it was spotted, I was on my bike at the Pacific Avenue bridge over the Ballona Creek. I paused, thought about checking the salt pan (5 minutes away), and decided not to. Just after arriving back at my house, I got the alert about this awesome shorebird at the salt pan. So I turned around and rode my bike right back to where I’d been. Cool to see one of these (only my second in LA County) with some of the breeding chest feathers (ruffs) hanging on.
Eastern Yellow Wagtail – This one goes down as the totally unexpected, mega sighting of the year. It’s just the third record ever for LA County. It was apparently spotted by someone else an hour before I saw it. But that person didn’t know what it was and hadn’t spread the word. So (maybe) this one counts as a bird I found.
Horned Lark – The second of my 2024 5MR targets that I saw. This Halloween sighting along the creek was followed up by a flock of 10 flying by me on the beach a few days later.
Indigo Bunting – This one was a bird-feeder special. There’s a little park next to an elementary school called Ballona Discovery Park. Friends of Ballona Wetlands do lots of good public educational work there. And they’ve got feeders that attract House Finches and Scaly-breasted Munia. In early December, an unexpected Indigo Bunting showed up. It was more brown than Indigo, but I was delighted to add it to my list.
Siberian Pipit – This bird wasn’t even its own species until October 2024. So it wasn’t a target. Indeed, whenever I’ve checked the pipit flocks in the past, it was in hopes of spying a Red-throated Pipit. But recently Siberian Pipit was split from American Pipit. And one December day while checking out the pipits at the little league ballfields along the creek, one stood out as not like the others. The chest and flanks were whiter and the streaks were thicker and darker. That made it a candidate for Siberian Pipit. I refound it 4 days later, and got the clinching photos of pink legs. Even accounting for old records of the bird as a japonicus subspecies of American Pipit, this is only LA County’s second Siberian Pipit.

Ruff

Siberian Pipit

Little Blue Heron

Indigo Bunting

The best ending to 2024 was a Christmas gift from my oldest child–a handmade piece of art representing my 5MR with some of my new additions sketched in pencil.

2025 5MR Targets

I knocked 2 of my targets off from last year’s list. And I’ve replaced 2 others that I didn’t see with some new ones. The first 5 remain species I’m convinced are due to be found. #10 is, as always, a wild dream

~~Rose-breasted Grosbeak~~ – A regular enough vagrant in L.A. County that a park in my 5MR is bound to host one. UPDATE 12/14/2025: As the year came to an end, I was scouring odd spots in my 5MR, including places I’d never birded. One of those was a strip of grass and trees alongside Imperial Avenue next to LAX. Surprisingly, a Rose-breasted Grosbeak was hanging out with some House Finches.
~~Lesser Black-backed Gull~~ – Increasingly spotted in L.A. County, but only once along the coast in my 5MR (2014). It’s past time for me to find one. UPDATE 1/20/2025: Before the month of January 2025 was up, gull guru Andy Birch spotted a first-cycle Lesser Black-backed Gull at Dockweiler Beach. A quick drive later I had added it to my list. Woo-hoo!
Chimney Swift – This one is all about ID skills. Each spring, the Vaux Swifts move through, and amongst them is surely a Chimney Swift or two. Do I have the patience to bird every bird and pick out the rarity?
Northern Waterthrush – There are several warblers I’d like to add to my 5MR list. My target is a Northern Waterthrush in the Playa Vista Riparian Corridor or at the Ballona Freshwater Marsh. The habitat is potentially good, especially in a wet year (if we ever have one of those again).
Painted Bunting – Finding one of the colorful male birds would be awesome. Last year may have been my chance, when they appeared in a few spots across the county. But I remain hopeful.
California Quail – New to my target list this year. Perhaps the terrible fires of early January in the Santa Monica mountains push some quail into unusual places this spring, like Kenneth Hahn or the Baldwin Hills stairs.
Wrentit – Another new target. Same thinking as with the quail. They are occasionally reported in my 5MR, but never with photos. Given the Wrentit’s fidelity to place, I’m dubious they are accurate reports.
Broad-winged Hawk – These raptors move through LA County in small numbers every year. You can even track their progress down the west coast and know when to expect them. One of these days, I’ll look up and see one.
Gray Catbird – Hiding somewhere in a brushy spot in my 5MR is a Gray Catbird that needs to meow when I’m within earshot.
Pileated Woodpecker – This would be absurd. But it would be fun. I can’t fathom where in my 5MR it would show up though.