Coastal Southern California

We’re just back from the USA, a trip that included a two-week Avian Adventures tour in California and Arizona. This was followed by a week on our own in Arizona with just a brief excursion into New Mexico. Almost throughout our stay we enjoyed clear blue skies and most days the temperature rose to at least 21º C. Early mornings were sometimes cold but we always knew that it would soon warm up.

We flew to Los Angeles and spent our first night in Newport Beach, about 45 miles to the south. Birding began the following morning (Christmas Eve) on the hotel car park where Western Bluebirds, Orange-crowned Warbler, Anna’s Hummingbird and Black Phoebe were very confiding and threatened to delay our departure. However, we were soon on our way to Upper Newport Bay where our visit coincided with one of the year’s highest tides and ideal conditions to see the area’s most notable bird, the “Light-footed” Clapper Rail. Not only did we see several of this restricted range subspecies but also Soras, a Virginia Rail and two American Bitterns, all of them forced out of the cordgrass by the rising water. It was an ideal place to start the tour and in no time at all we had seen 40 or more species – ducks, shorebirds, pelicans, raptors and more local specialities in the form of California Gnatcatcher and the beldingi subspecies of Savannah Sparrow.

Black-necked Stilt with dragonfly

Later, we spent some time at the nearby San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary, an area of freshwater ponds that boasts 11 miles of nature trails. Here we had good close views of a variety of common ducks and shorebirds and saw our first Vermilion Flycatcher, always a crowd-pleaser. From there we headed to Dana Point where sadly we arrived a day too late to see the Masked Booby that had been hanging out there throughout the previous week. Those in our group who hadn’t previously seen one were just as impressed by a Pacific Loon.

Pacific Loon

Christmas Day was spent birding around San Diego, including the South Bay area, Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge and along Monument Road that leads to Border Field State Park. The South Bay area in particular was full of birds and again we were fortunate to have a high tide to push the hundreds of shorebirds into close view. Tijuana Slough provided the Little Blue Heron that we had hoped for, not a very common species in California, but along Monument Road, in fading light, we were frustrated in our attempts to see the many Wrentits that could be heard singing from the brushy hillside. Perhaps not surprisingly, it was here within sight of the border ‘fence’ that we had our first encounter with the US Border Patrol.

US Navy ship in the South Bay with rafts of ducks, mainly Redheads and Lesser Scaup.

Willet - the western race inornata.

Little Blue Heron

Before leaving the coast we spent a most enjoyable morning at La Jolla, an attractive little town just north of San Diego where we were able to get up close to Harbour Seals, Brown Pelicans, Brandt’s Cormorants, Heermann’s, Western and Ring-billed Gulls and Royal Terns. More distant were Western Grebes on the sea and Black-vented Shearwaters flying over it. Shorebirds included Black Turnstones, Hudsonian Whimbrel and Willets. We might have hoped for more but on a beautiful, warm and sunny morning in such a scenic area, no one was complaining!

Brown Pelican

Royal Tern

Harbour Seal - looking a bit puzzled!

Next, the Salton Sea…

Arizona tour

Peter writes:
I’m just back from Arizona and another successful birding tour in the Grand Canyon State. The itinerary was the familiar one that we have been using for several years now. It included Tucson (Sabino Canyon, Sweetwater Wetlands and Mount Lemmon), Portal (Cave Creek Canyon), Sierra Vista (San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, Garden, Huachuca, Ramsey & Miller Canyons), Green Valley (Madera Canyon), Sedona (Oak Creek Canyon) and finally the Grand Canyon itself.

In contrast to last year, the weather was mostly very warm and we found everywhere to be very dry after a winter with little rain. It was also quite windy on occasions. These are conditions that give rise to an extreme risk of fires and since my return there has been a major outbreak in the Chiricahuas which is affecting about 10,000 acres near Portal. It has threatened Cave Creek Canyon and quite a number of homes in the area have been evacuated. Currently, it is reported that the fire is 10% contained and that the Forest Service has 343 people fighting it. Up to date news of the fire can be found here.

As in 2006, our tour coincided with the passage through Arizona of thousands of Wilson’s Warblers heading north from Mexico and Central America to breed in Canada and the Pacific North-West. There were times, particularly along the San Pedro River, when we were almost in danger of stepping on them! Audubon’s (Yellow-rumped) Warblers were also numerous.

Wilson's Warbler...

...and another Wilson's Warbler

Audubon's Warbler

Empidonax flycatchers were abundant and gave us repeated identification challenges! With the popular field guides (Sibley, Kaufmann, National Geographic) saying that Cordilleran and Pacific-slope Flycatchers are identical in appearance and separable only by the call of the male, it is probably best to call them ‘Western’ Flycatchers, as they were before being split in 1989. There are many who still regard this as a ‘bad’ split and I can understand why! Dusky and Hammond’s Flycatchers probably are separate species but they, too, are very difficult to separate.

'Western' Flycatcher

Hammond's Flycatcher - I think!!

Fortunately, there were also plenty of brightly-coloured and easily identifiable birds to see, which is what you want, particularly if, like some of our group, it’s your first visit to the USA. Not everyone on a birding tour wants to spend time agonising about the identity of lots of small, grey, brown or olive-green birds! So, Painted Redstart, Elegant Trogon, Hooded, Scott’s and Bullock’s Orioles and Western Tanagers were popular.

Elegant Trogon

Western Tanager

Greater Roadrunner and California Condor were two of the ‘most-wanted’ species and although it would have been a major surprise if we hadn’t seen them, both took a little longer to present themselves than I would have liked. There are now reported to be 74 Condors living in the wild in Arizona and as a result of captive breeding, the total population has increased dramatically from 22 birds in 1987 (the brink of extinction) to 369 birds in 2011.

Greater Roadrunner

California Condor

Our total bird list fell just short of 200 species, about par for the course. As always, among my own personal favourites were the waders (shorebirds if you’re reading this in the USA). They included Willets, Wilson’s Phalaropes, American Avocets, Long-billed Dowitchers, Lesser Yellowlegs, Solitary Sandpipers and, of course, Killdeers.

Willets

American Avocet

Solitary Sandpiper

Killdeer

We are hoping to be back in Arizona (and California) at the end of the year when we lead the Avian Adventures Christmas tour across the deserts from San Diego to Tucson.