early June landbird migrants, Jacumba, miscellanea
3:03 pm
A rather slow May for western landbird migrants in San Diego County has now oozed into early June with a few of the usual suspects still passing through. Yesterday (3 June) on outer Point Loma there were 3 Western Wood-Pewees, 1 Willow Flycatcher, and 1 Western Tanager–as well as 2 of the continuing Tennessee Warblers in the residential area. Today’s migrants at Jacumba included 1 Western Wood-Pewee, 5 Western Tanagers, 1 Black-headed Grosbeak (possible breeder), 1 Blue Grosbeak (probably on territory), and one of the latest records from the desert of a Western Flycatcher. An adult male Vermilion Flycatcher today is probably an early-arriving post-breeding disperser from somewhere else, as there hadn’t been a Vermilion there since mid-February. Continuing Harris’s Hawk. A good place to see Lesser Nighthawks at pre-dawn. (I also hear that there was a Townsend’s Warbler today on Point Loma, a species that somewhat regularly gets seen into the first week of June.)
There’s a newly-discovered Double-crested Cormorant nesting colony with at least a dozen nests in one or two large eucalyptus trees on Naval Base Point Loma near the fueling docks–well, “new” unless somebody knew of its existence before this year. Visible with a scope looking down from Fort Rosecrans Cemetery. This makes only about four known nesting sites in the county. (The others are at the Salt Works, San Elijo Lagoon (at least in 2020), and at the Carlton Oaks Golf Course in Santee. Nesting is also very, very sporadic at the upper end of Sweetwater Reservoir.)
Paul Lehman, San Diego