Golden-crowned Kinglet 2

The Golden-crowned Kinglets have been around for 3 days. Each day they moved further up the park. Originally they were in the two pines near Argos street, the day after they were in the pines on the hill, and after that they took to the taller pines near the playground. There was only one row of pines left but it seems they skipped them for some reason.

I finally managed to get some decent shots of the crown.

Took me about 300 photos but I finally got there. They are just as restless as the rubies.

 

 

To add to this, I had a Ruby-crowned Kinglet in the same tree, and it had its crest raised up. Ruby-crowns very rarely show off their red crown, so this was quite a pleasure to watch. It only had its crest up when it was in the same tree as the GCKLs, so perhaps there was some indirect territorialism going on here.

Closest I'll ever get to a perfect crown shot. Pose isn't great and that twig is in the way but I can't complain.

 On the 2nd I met two birders who came to follow up my sighting--Dan Cooper and Dinuk Maganamma. Unfortunately they were a day too late, but we had interesting conversations (the best perhaps being where Dan assumed from the reports I send in that I was an old man with a beard!). It seems there are not as many younger birders as I had previously thought. On the 1st I emphasized the movement of the birds in the park, noting how the 2nd was probably the last day to see them. Dinuk needed it for a photo-lifer, I assume Dan had seen this bird multiple times already.

I notice they were trying to call the birds in with tapes. I had tried this on the 3rd day but they were not responsive to the song. The ruby-crowned kinglet, however, responded with its territorial, scolding calls to its own song. I have no idea why the golden-crowns are not so eager to entertain.



Moorpark *YHBL on 15th October

Though I wasn't entirely pleased at a trip to a halloween festival designed for children replacing a birding plan I had made, it fortunately held some interesting attractions. The location was Underwood Family Farm, a location in the farmlands north of Agoura. The area was entirely swamped with blackbirds, there must have been at least 200.

Blackbirds (not the little thrush found in England, but the New World family of Orioles type of Blackbird) are notorious for being sociable, just like warblers. On migration they do congregate, but usually numbers like this are fairly unusual. The near deafening sound of blackbird calls was just an invitation to check through them. The flock was primarily Brewer's and Red-winged, but if I was ever to see a vagrant blackbird here was the place, and I figured at least I'd get a Tricoloured or two. Almost immediately I had a Yellow-headed Blackbird fly right past me, a rare bird for southern California. After some extensive chasing I found it (it seemed to be an immature male) again with a second female-type* bird.

*Female-type referring to a dull plumage that females show; often juveniles and immatures show similar dull plumage (even colourful males) and usually it is near impossible to distinguish adult females from immature males or females.

I found a Lincoln's Sparrow sneaking around the children's playground area. Soon enough I had some pretty good candidates for the uncommon Tricoloured Blackbird too. Tricolours are like small Red-wings. The best way to tell them apart is by the colour band on the epaulette of the wing (if it shows yellow or orange is definitely a Red-winged, however in Tricoloured it is usually white).

Though some fall Red-winged can show some diluted colouration it seemed very likely that the white
bar on the scapular/epaulette was legitimate.

Only two other rare blackbirds remained (not including Orioles, but Orioles don't socialize with the "ground" blackbirds) and those two were the Rusty Blackbird (a scarce accidental) and the sparrow-like Bobolink (scarce but not as rare as Rusty) however I could not find any that resembled these two. Rusty males are painful to identify as they are very similar to Brewer's with a slightly less intensive sheen on their feathers, so who knows, there may have been one around.

Laguna Tamarisks PRAIRIE WARBLER

So after a whole year I finally manage to get to this ubiquitous location. There have been previous attempts to get here but all have failed due to GPS being unable to find the area, time and other factors. But this time, under the shadows of Laguna Road's tamarisks, it seemed I actually managed to get here.

The tamarisks along this road (and along S. Wolff Road nearby) are magical. For whatever reason, the warblers, vireos and a few other migrants love them. There are trees all over the place but they are completely barren. Something about these tamarisks causes all the migrants in the nearby vicinity to gravitate towards this area. I was just about ready to call migration over cause (in my area at least) the warblers have disappeared and everywhere is now overrun by Yellow-rumped Warblers and White-crowned Sparrows. However, recent sightings seemed to suggest that this location still had some migrants trickling past.

My main motive was to nail the last two local warblers: Hermit and Macgillivray's. Neither are that uncommon, but both, as migrants, are unpredictable. While they have tendencies to the habitats they pass through there does not seem to be a place where they can be guaranteed. I saw on a recent sightings that both of these two had been seen at Laguna Tamarisks as well as a Cassin's Vireo (all 3 would be new for me) plus a Blackpoll Warbler. A couple of days ago there was also a very rare Prairie Warbler reported at the Wolff Road tamarisks nearby, but I didn't count on this bird being here anymore because not only was it a couple of days ago but warblers move fast when it gets to the denoument of migration.

Due to "circumstances" I did not set foot on Laguna Road until 11am ish which is an acceptable time but by this time most birds would have dispersed away from the incoming afternoon sun. It was pretty silent apart from a few Yellow-rumped Warblers. Not that far along a car slowed down beside me and the driver, knowing I was looking for birds (is it really that obvious?) informed me that they had refound the Prairie Warbler only a little distance from the tree it was originally discovered in and it was being watched "as we speak". It was late enough in the day as it is, I didn't want to take the risk of it moving on in what could have been a matter of minutes. So I left the Laguna Road trees to the sound of the breeze running over the fields nearby (anyone who would have been here for birds would have left well before 10am) and went over to Wolff Road. There were not as many people standing "suspiciously" along the farmer's fence and in the middle of the road as I had expected but there were a few here with binoculars out.

It took a few minutes but the Prairie Warbler did show. It was a young female so it wasn't as glamorous as it could be but it was a remarkable bird nonetheless, and a very rare occurence here in California.

They were not the world's most amazing pictures but they were pretty good for a skulky warbler. It was foraging at only 2 metres up in the tree and it was not bothered by human presence. I find it funny that despite the fact I see 20+ warblers a day in migration I have never ever managed to get such good photos of a warbler before. Perhaps the several hundred mile misdirection had slowed it down a little.

I love the warblers because they are always so different despite the fact most are nearly identical. This Prairie Warbler seemed very fond of fanning its tail while it was feeding (see last photo) which is something I have not seen in a warbler before. The tail markings are also very unique.

All the other birders had left by the time I finished up with my photos.

Back at Laguna I started picking up birdings that were not just Yellow-rumped. I had a pair of Townsend's Warblers midway down. I also saw another male later on but it might have been one of the pair. Townsend's are definitely worth a photo or two. My best picture was of the female so here she is:

At a couple of points I thought I heard a Macgillivray's across the road. It sounded like a Yellowthroat, but it was in a tree which is the not-so-eloquent-but-correct way of describing a Mac warbler. Yellowthroats are entirely dedicated to inhabit riparian habitats near water, and there was no water here, so Macgillivray's was a likely option. However I could never see the bird at all so I couldn't confirm. It started to get to 12pm and there were virtually no birds at all, not even the common Yellow-rumped Warblers so I started walking back.

I ended up meeting some other birders along the Tamarisks, one of which happened to be a professor of the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology. She seemed pretty satisifed with my knowledge (perhaps it was when I identified birds she had no clue on and I ended up being correct!) and offered internships, contact details and the like. That could be a good start to a career.

Later on I got this Ruddy Duck along the coast. It isn't usually a marine duck.