Tag: 5MR (Page 1 of 3)

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.
~~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.

5MR: 2023 Recap and 2024 Targets

January 20, 2024 / KDL / 0 Comments

Great Crested Flycatcher on LMU’s campus, Sept. 23, 2023

2023: In a Year of Travel, the 5MR Still Delivers

For the first time since COVID appeared in spring 2020, I traveled a bunch last year. Trips to Spain, Puerto Rico, Italy, and Baja California highlighted my birding for the year. Nevertheless, I spent most of my time at home, and most of my birding close to home. I don’t think I’ll ever quit prioritizing my 5MR. All told, I ended up seeing 216 species in my 5MR in 2023. That’s an average year for my circle.

With each passing year, it gets a little harder to add new birds to my 5MR list. This year I only managed to add three. And only one was a bird I found by myself. The new additions to the list are:

Townsend’s Solitaire – This is a higher elevation thrush that rarely strays to the LA basin. Between the Santa Monica mountains and Palos Verdes, and the coast and downtown LA, there are only a half dozen reports in eBird. The day we left for our spring break trip to Spain, word went out that a Townsend’s Solitaire was found on LMU’s campus. Luckily for me, it decided to stay around for a couple of weeks. I was able to see it when we returned. As I mentioned in my post about the find, the bird is named after John Kirk Townsend, a 19th century naturalist and phrenologist who dug up Native American burial sites to bring skulls back to his racist skull-studying friends. Maybe “buff-winged solitaire” is a better option for a name?
Great Crested Flycatcher- This new 5MR lifer was found at LMU as well. Funny story – I had been at LMU that morning, and stood in the spot the Great Crested Flycatcher was later found, for 20 minutes. If it was there at the time, I didn’t see it. But 5MR birding played a role in its find. I’d seen a Summer Tanager that morning in the NE corner of LMU’s campus and reported it. A young birder saw the report and came to add Summer Tanager to his 5MR list. While he was there, he saw the Great Crested Flycatcher. It’s a familiar story of how one bird find leads to another.
Brown Creeper – Brown Creeper is one of the birds I put on my 2023 Targets list. And I predicted that it’d likely be one of 2 locations in my 5MR. Sure enough, in November, while birding Cheviot Hills Park, I finally stumbled upon a Brown Creeper in my 5MR. I had just discovered a Painted Redstart at the park and was following it through the trees when I saw the creeper working its way up a trunk. The only photo I got almost missed the bird. I love watching these birds work the trees. They start near the bottom of the trunk, and head up, hunting for insects along the way. Then, they fly to another tree, and start the process again.

Brown Creeper

Townsend’s Solitaire

2024 5MR Targets

I’m keeping most of my target list from last year for this year, because I think most of the birds are findable if I’m in the right place at the right time. But I’ve added a couple that aren’t likely, but would be awesome to see so close to home.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak – A regular enough vagrant in L.A. County that a park in my 5MR is bound to host one.
~~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 1/20/25: Lesser Black-backed Gull at Dockweiler Beach.
~~Horned Lark~~ – I feel like they should be regular in the Ballona flatlands. But they don’t get reported. Maybe they don’t like the coast. My best bet may be ID’ing a fly-by, but I don’t know the flight call well enough to do that. UPDATE 10/31/2024: Horned Larks found on the little league ballfields along Ballona Creek, and then 3 days later at Dockweiler Beach.
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? That’s the premise of this whole exercise, isn’t it?
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.
~~Little Blue Heron~~ / Reddish Egret – There are so many egrets and herons in the Ballona area that one of these two species is bound to show up some time. If we’d get more rain, or “they” would manage the wetlands so that there were more shallow pools for birds like these to feed in, the chances would go up. UPDATE 6/10/24: Little Blue Heron found in Del Rey Lagoon!
Crested Caracara – One of these desert raptors was spotted at the Ballona Freshwater Marsh in June 2023 while I was birding in Puerto Rico. (There was a Laughing Gull present at the same time, which would have also been a new bird for my 5MR. The double-miss was , admittedly, a little painful.). It was a one-day wonder, and I may have missed my chance. But this would be a cool addition to the list.
Painted Bunting – The habitat is right in a couple of spots. Finding one of the colorful male birds would be awesome.
Eastern Phoebe – The eastern complement to our Black Phoebe. These birds seem to show up every year somewhere in LA County, and the Playa Vista Riparian Corridor seems like a great spot for one to spend the winter.
Magnificent Frigatebird – The last couple of big storms to come up from Baja have blown frigatebirds into L.A. County. They didn’t seem to make it past Palos Verdes, but I’m optimistic that it won’t be that long before one of the long-winged flyers soars along Dockweiler Beach.