Antique Roadshow

In other notes, I embarked on a little adventure today to cover some local interests. The first stop was the all-too familiar Marina del Rey, a coastal estuary location that has proven itself many times before. My last visit here was to view the vagrant blue-footed boobies that had set up on the outer breakwater.

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The target for this location was the "penguin"-like seabird better known as the ancient murrelet, a member of a small group of oceanic seabirds. If you thought that was hard to pronounce, try its scientific name Synthliboramphus antiquus! The name murrelet is an expanded term that originated from murre, the American name for guillemot (similar to auk and auklet). What I can't tell you is what the name "murre" actually means. I also can't tell you why the ancient murrelet got its name, whether it is because it is a member of a fairly primitive group of diving birds or whether it is the "elderly" markings on the head as Wikipedia might suggest. All I can tell you is that "auk" is thought to come from an ancient Norse word! 

Though ancient murrelets are annual winter visitors in this part of California, they are incredibly erratic, often rare, and well, well out to sea. The finding of just one this close to shore, let alone several hundred metres from the sea in a marina was a spectacle. The "twitchability" of the bird in that it stuck around in one place for a rather long time made it rather popular. In a matter of days this bird, a star performer by itself, has been accompanied by 6 others of its own kind. 

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I approached Marina del Rey in the usual fashion, walking from Pacific Avenue (the "Playa del Rey" side) and over the bridge to the cycling path. A preening male bufflehead had caught the light perfectly, its usual black hood lit up with a seldom-seen iridescence. 

Along the bike path I asked birders along here if they had seen the birds, and some said they had, albeit distant hazy views deep into the marina itself. The troubling part was that these views were from some serious looking scopes, a certain league of equipment that I did personally carry, nor did I come close to matching with my current camera. The birds were a good kilometer away from my current position, an impossible distance to see such a minute creature. 

Summary map of the area in question. Parking at the white circle. Yellow square indicates viewing point
of 1km to birds. Dotted yellow rectangle indicates the ideal viewing location in the circumstances, with
the white line detailing my eventual path to reach this location.

An escapade through a labyrinth of apartments, closed off coastguard areas and dead ends later and I was finally in place to see them. They were quite obvious once in range, with a group of 3 at first followed by a group of 2. As time ticked on the groups seemed to split and reform so it did get a bit confusing as to how many birds were actually present, but I can vouch for at least 5! The nearest views were about 40 meters before a kayak-er ignorantly passed right through the center and shooed them off much further out. I was impressed how close the kayaker got before they dived away! He must have been only a few meters off them. Now if only I had a kayak...

One of the more abundant residents in the Marina today was the surf scoter, a type of ocean-going duck. It is a rather uncommon bird for me so I always appreciate seeing them, though they are not too rare overall. Here is the female which traveled beneath me while I was watching the murrelets:

In comparison the male is far more striking:

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This would-be series of paragraphs featuring missed birds in boring nondescript locations is not interesting enough to type.

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The other success of the day was searching for the continuing Pacific wren at Alma Park near Long Beach. Unlike the common Bewick's wren and house wren it is a stubby compact little bundle of feathers that pays better homage to the "original" European wren. The song and calls are quite similar as well! The bird was camping out in a corner of the park, a small shady corner no bigger than 2 meters or so squared. The park itself was tiny as well, it took about 20 seconds to walk to the other side from the car. An unfortunately placed bush obscured viewing, and you could only watch a fraction of the area at a time.

It took nearly 30 minutes before the bird was heard. A few observers saw a silhouette from their side of the bush for about 2 seconds. About 5 minutes later I then saw a little rusty figure from my side pop out of the lower hedgerow. I managed one single shot out of my camera before it flew up into the honeysuckle. I didn't have the zoom set at all, and all the settings were whatever they were before, but fortunately something decent came of it. Though a second picture later was a bit more interesting, and a little closer, so I'll show that one instead:

See if you can find it.

This remains one of two photographs I managed of the bird, here is the other one. It is frustratingly good at zipping in and out of cover! It even crossed the open twice but it was so fast that no one managed to raise binoculars in time. During this madness a white-throated sparrow briefly stopped by, a bird which is actually rarer than the Pacific wren. I took a few poor shots of it before returning to the wren, and unfortunately I did not see this newcomer a second time. I had seen the species before in Canada so it wasn't such a big deal.

All in all a decent day out, and a good start for 2015!

Marina/Playa del Rey revisited on 3rd

Marina del Rey is one of the most reliable sites I have ever visited. The site is composed of Playa del Rey, Ballona Channel, and Marina del Rey itself. Starting from the sea, two separate estuaries split into the marina on the north side, and Ballona Creek on the south. Playa del Rey forms the southern side of Ballona Creek, and is linked up to the beach and wetland areas.

On the sea end, this location is made of breakwaters and rocky shores. For whatever reason what is usually a vagrant to California waters has become rather abundant this autumn. That bird is the blue-footed booby, one of the gannet's tropical relatives. Typically the birds are further south beyond the North American border, and these irruptions only happen every so often so naturally I felt like trying to see one while they were not in the "only-one-in-California-per-year-if-you're-lucky" routine. At least 7 birds were present on Marina del Rey's breakwater a month ago; Los Angeles is lucky to see them annually at all.

I immediately found about 20 surfbirds on the middle jetty, a long-wanted bird of mine. Accompanied by a duo of ruddy turnstones, a single black turnstone, a dunlin and a least sandpiper, the breakwater was quite a bustling place. As for the blue-footed boobies, I eventually picked out two but it was not an easy task. These "dark blobs" sat among countless over cormorant and pelican blobs and the closest range permitted by land was within the 300 meter range.

Surfbird.

Blue-footed booby. If you were hoping to see the blue feet you would be better to try google images or consult
a field guide...

An added bonus was this belted kingfisher. Another common bird that has taken me far too long to bump into:

Belted kingfisher.

The fourth (optional) target, cinnamon teal, did not feel like making an appearance.

Marina Del Rey, February 18th

Marina Del Rey

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Bird activity here always seems to be constant, but its the type of birds that fluctuate. Last time it was an all grebe show, but today it was other waterfowl. While driving to the location I had an interesting falcon fly over. It was not a Kestrel or a Merlin and it had no black "armpits" and it was fairly large. I could only assume it was a Peregrine, but I have no clue what they look like other than in the stereotypical perched pose since I had never seen one before.

In the car park I noticed a far-off shorebird which seems to be undeniably a Long-billed Curlew, but hazy and uncertain opinions from other birders puts me off. The bill seems far too long for a Whimbrel to me.



Bufflehead



At the location I noticed some new ducks. Bufflehead had taken up residence on Ballona Creek, as had some Red-breasted Mergansers. Both little grebes, though mostly Horned, were still prevailing, but there was not a sign of the Western Grebes, and with the absence of Western Grebes went my hope of finding a Clark's. A flyby Willet was appreciated; you can never get bored of these attractive waders.



Eared Grebe





Next was another Willet, or so I thought. I passed it off as it had black and white wing markings (which I considered all varations of to be stereotypical to the Willet) but then I remembered that the Surfbird sported similar markings. The stubby bill seemed to match, but then I had a recollection of the Pluvialis plovers (i.e. Pacific Gold) having this wing pattern. In the end it turned out that it was a Pluvialis; a Black-bellied Plover. I was really hoping for one of the other two birds.

This gull is not yet identified. Its probably a California or a Herring.

And for the first time ever I had a male Red-breasted Merganser. I have probably seen about 15 females by now.

Royal Tern:

I had several other interesting gulls here, but I cannot get any ID for them, so I will exclude them from this report for now.

Backtracking, I found an interesting low-flying duck-like dark bird.

It was undoubtedly a Brent Goose (*cough* Brant *cough*) and it was completely unexpected. There had been previous reports of a single  Brant Brent Goose at this location for a while, but there was a fair gap between the last report and now. I wasn't looking for it because I already had decent Brent Goose pictures from SeaWorld in San Diego, but it wasn't something to ignore.

FYI I dislike the name Brant, which seems to have occupied the minds of birders outside of Europe. There is no "Brent Goose" in North America.

It flew out to sea and disappeared again, but later when I was walking down the rocks it flew over and landed right beside me. I can't think of any other place where you could get within 2 metres of a Brent Goose. They are just never this tame and even if they are they tend to be out at sea or in marshy wetlands which are downright unaccessible.

This picture was taken at 0% zoom just to show how close it was. If it helps, putting your hand so it
aligns with mine gives a better impression of distance.

And still no Surfbird. Someone who had visited on the same day as me had 80 of them. Where are an earth are they?