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Monthly Archives: December 2024

Hot Spots for the week of Wednesday Jan 1 – Tuesday Jan 7

1:32 pm

Greetings and Happy New Years


So another great week. 30 of the 31 identified Hot Spots were visited this past week and a checklist was submitted. It’s great to see the number of people who have contributed to this effort. There are names I see regularly, names I don’t recognize and obviously names I recognize. All of you though are contributing checklists which are helping to fill in the data gaps at the Hot Spot level and in addition making the bar charts far more usable as there are fewer weeks without data. At the end of this message I have some information on what’s been accomplished over the past 12 weeks. 

This week there are 4 Hot Spots that only need a checklist this week and they will have at least one checklist for each week of the year (highlighted in red or have the number 1 after the name). 

Agua Hedionda Lagoon–east end-15
Buena Vista Lagoon–west basin-15
Carlsbad Blvd. and Manzano Cliff overlook-8
Cibbets Flat Campground-3
Cottonwood Creek Park–lower-1
Crestridge Ecological Reserve–Horsemill Rd. access-8
Cuyamaca Rancho SP–Cuyamaca Peak-12
Cuyamaca Rancho SP–Green Valley Campground-4
Encinitas Community Park-12
Kitchen Creek Rd.–lower-10
Kitchen Creek Rd.–Pacific Crest Trail pullout-2
Kitchen Creek Rd.–south gate-11
Kitchen Creek Rd.–upper-8
La Jolla Natural Park (not LJ Cove)-14
Laguna Mtns.–Desert View Picnic Grounds-4
Laguna Mtns.–Los Huecos Rd.-6
Lake Morena-3
Lake Sutherland-8
Leo Mullen Sports Park and Trail-10
Miramar National Cemetery (limited access)-1
Nobel Athletic Fields-1
Palomar Mtn.–Fry Creek CC-3
Palomar Mtn.–Silvercrest Picnic Area and Trail-5
Palomar Mtn.–Thunder Spring-Upper Doane Valley Loop-10
Palomar Observatory-1
Point Loma Community Park-8
San Diego NWR–Bonita Meadows-14
San Felipe Valley Wildlife Area–North-15
San Luis Rey River–Benet to Foussat-8
Siempre Viva Rd. pond-13
UCSD–Northwest edge-12

Since I started sending out lists (3rd week of Sept) the bar charts for 15 Hot Spots have been completed. 

As a County 345 Hot Spots now have at least one checklist for each week of the year. 

There are 892 (as of today, with new ones being created every once in a while) Hot Spots that have one or more weeks without a checklist.   

Of the 892 Hot Spots, 33 only need one checklist and 143 need 10 or fewer checklists. 

Each week there are an average of 490 Hot Spots across the county that have never had a checklist in that week. It varies from 334 (4th week of Dec.) to 628 (second week of August).

Each week an average of 50 or so Hot Spots receive their first checklist for that week (includes the Hot spots I send out) 

I plan to continue to send out a list each week emphasizing the 176 Hot Spots that need 10 or fewer checklists. Fortunately only 20 or so show up each week. In addition
I will be adding some other Hot spots to keep the number on the list around 30-35. 

Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

John Bruin
Bay Park

San Diego Christmas bird count–final tally

10:31 pm

Dear friends,
I’m glad now to be able to share now the final tally on the San Diego CBC: 230 species! (It pays to triple-check your work.) See below for the complete list.
The most notable species in terms of being recorded on the fewest previous San Diego CBCs: Ovenbird (no previous count), Gray Catbird (1 previous count), Scott’s Oriole (2 previous counts), Lucy’s Warbler (3 previous counts), Grace’s Warbler (4 previous counts–albeit of just 2 returnees), and Little Stint (5 previous counts–albeit of one returnee).
Species
hitting all-time highs were the Allen’s Hummingbird, American White Pelican (even after subtraction of possible duplications in two areas),
Great Egret, Red-shouldered Hawk, Nuttall’s Woodpecker, Vermilion Flycatcher
(biggest spike of any native species on a percentage basis), Common Raven, Wrentit, Phainopepla,
Orange-crowned Warbler, Lucy’s Warbler, Nashville Warbler, and perhaps least
surprisingly, Swinhoe’s White-eye. While not quite breaking records, the
Vaux’s Swift, Long-billed Curlew, Royal Tern, Say’s Phoebe, Tropical Kingbird, House Wren,
Scaly-breasted Munia, and Townsend’s Warbler were in high numbers for those
species. Most of these reflect long-term increases. The Wrentit numbers
benefited from intensified coverage of urban canyons but attest that this
species is coping with habitat fragmentation.

None of the
resident species that have been on the decline disappeared this year,
thankfully, though with a single individual in Rice Canyon the California Quail
hit a record low and barely escaped being missed for the first time in the San
Diego CBC’s history. No irregular winter visitors staged an invasion this year,
and numbers of several winter visitors were considerably below average, most
notably the Lesser Scaup, Surf Scoter, American Coot, Short-billed Dowitcher,
Heermann’s Gull (the last presumably reflecting 4 consecutive years of nesting
failure on Isla Rasa), and Northern Flicker. The Ring-necked Duck, Ring-billed Gull, Bonaparte’s
Gull, Forster’s Tern, Sharp-shinned Hawk, European Starling, Golden-crowned Sparrow, and Brewer’s
Blackbird, while not hitting record lows, were in low numbers by historical
standards and reflect long-term declines in San Diego.


None of these comparisons is
adjusted for the variations in participation over the years, as we’re still awaiting the last of the effort data. Since the
mid-1980s effort on the San Diego CBC has approximately doubled, something that
needs to be taken into account in a more careful analysis.

The number of species of which just one individual was recorded: 41, implying the importance of getting every bird staked out ahead of time, and implying how luck and chance can swing the totals widely.

1 Snow Goose 1
2 Ross’ Goose 1
3 Brant 2217
4 Cackling Goose 1
5 Canada Goose 152
6 Wood Duck 1
7 Blue-winged Teal 27
8 Cinnamon Teal 18
9 Northern Shoveler 401
10 Gadwall 78
11 Eurasian Wigeon 2
12 American Wigeon 2168
13 Mallard 785
14 Northern Pintail 273
15 Green-winged Teal 302
16 Canvasback 6
17 Redhead 159
18 Ring-necked Duck 1
19 Greater Scaup 67
20 Lesser Scaup 271
21 Surf Scoter 4007
22 Black Scoter 4
23 Bufflehead 807
24 Common Goldeneye 2
25 Red-breasted Merganser 48
26 Ruddy Duck 171
27 California Quail 1
28 Pied-billed Grebe 44
29 Horned Grebe 23
30 Eared Grebe 492
31 Western Grebe 4984
32 Clark’s Grebe 78
33 Domestic Pigeon 1162
34 Eur. Collared Dove 86
35 Common Ground Dove 3
36 Mourning Dove 555
37 Greater Roadrunner 1
38 Vaux’s Swift 31
39 White-throated Swift 98
40 Anna’s Hummingbird 776
41 Costa’s Hummingbird 4
42 Allen’s Hummingbird 503
43 Broad-billed Hummingbird 1
44 Ridgway’s Rail 20
45 Virginia Rail 5
46 Sora 5
47 Common Gallinule 5
48 American Coot 508
49 Black-necked Stilt 86
50 American Avocet 76
51 Black Oystercatcher 2
52 Black-bellied Plover 968
53 Pacific Golden Plover 1
54 Killdeer 254
55 Semipalmated Plover 488
56 Snowy Plover 211
57 Whimbrel 24
58 Long-billed Curlew 234
59 Marbled Godwit 1590
60 Short-billed Dowitcher 42
61 Long-billed Dowitcher 62
62 Wilson’s Snipe 2
63 Spotted Sandpiper 29
64 Wandering Tattler 1
65 Lesser Yellowlegs 4
66 Willet 1844
67 Greater Yellowlegs 72
68 Ruddy Turnstone 21
69 Black Turnstone 35
70 Red Knot 178
71 Surfbird 12
72 Sanderling 1147
73 Dunlin 326
74 Little Stint 1
75 Least Sandpiper 340
76 Western Sandpiper 4777
77 Parasitic Jaeger 3
78 Pomarine Jaeger 1
79 Bonaparte’s Gull 17
80 Heermann’s Gull 52
81 Ring-billed Gull 344
82 Western Gull 1606
83 Herring Gull 135
84 Lesser Black-backed Gull 1
85 California Gull 1075
86 Glaucous-winged Gull 4
87 Thayer’s Gull 1
88 Black Skimmer 1
89 Caspian Tern 4
90 Forster’s Tern 35
91 Royal Tern 337
92 Red-throated Loon 17
93 Pacific Loon 39
94 Common Loon 35
95 Black-vented Shearwater 145
96 Short-tailed Shearwater 1
97 Brown Booby 2
98 Brandt’s Cormorant 3004
99 Pelagic Cormorant 23
100 Double-crested Cormorant 487
101 Am. White Pelican 187
102 Brown Pelican 1200
103 Least Bittern 2
104 Yellow-crn. Night Heron 13
105 Black-crn. Night Heron 78
106 Little Blue Heron 1
107 Tricolored Heron 1
108 Reddish Egret 4
109 Snowy Egret 112
110 Green Heron 3
111 Cattle Egret 2
112 Great Egret 201
113 Great Blue Heron 114
114 Turkey Vulture 51
115 Osprey 45
116 White-tailed Kite 7
117 Northern Harrier 43
118 Sharp-shinned Hawk 1
119 Cooper’s Hawk 50
120 Red-shouldered Hawk 76
121 Red-tailed Hawk 119
122 Barn Owl 3
123 Great Horned Owl 13
124 Burrowing Owl 2
125 Belted Kingfisher 25
126 Red-breasted Sapsucker 1
127 Downy Woodpecker 10
128 Nuttall’s Woodpecker 118
129 Northern Flicker 9
130 American Kestrel 84
131 Merlin 14
132 Peregrine Falcon 18
133 Prairie Falcon 1
134 Red-crowned Parrot 9
135 Lilac-crowned Parrot 6
136 Red-masked Parakeet 4
137 Greater Pewee 1
138 Hammond’s Flycatcher 1
139 Gray Flycatcher 1
140 Western Flycatcher 3
141 Black Phoebe 480
142 Say’s Phoebe 193
143 Vermilion Flycatcher 26
144 Tropical Kingbird 3
145 Cassin’s Kingbird 264
146 Scissor-tailed Flycatcher 1
147 Hutton’s Vireo 10
148 Loggerhead Shrike 9
149 California Scrub Jay 67
150 American Crow 6475
151 Common Raven 301
152 Horned Lark 475
153 Tree Swallow 324
154 Violet-green Swallow 1
155 Barn Swallow 12
156 Bushtit 1069
157 Wrentit 188
158 Ruby-crowned Kinglet 201
159 White-breasted Nuthatch 1
160 Red-breasted Nuthatch 7
161 Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 69
162 California Gnatcatcher 64
163 Rock Wren 3
164 House Wren 65
165 Marsh Wren 12
166 Bewick’s Wren 105
167 Cactus Wren 13
168 European Starling 436
169 California Thrasher 93
170 Sage Thrasher 1
171 Gray Catbird 1
172 Northern Mockingbird 128
173 Western Bluebird 154
174 Mountain Bluebird 9
175 Hermit Thrush 136
176 American Robin 35
177 Cedar Waxwing 167
178 Phainopepla 25
179 Scaly-breasted Munia 195
180 House Sparrow 512
181 American Pipit 839
182 House Finch 1969
183 Lesser Goldfinch 714
184 American Goldfinch 59
185 Chipping Sparrow 37
186 Clay-colored Sparrow 1
187 Savannah Sparrow 399
188 Lark Sparrow 4
189 Fox Sparrow 6
190 Dark-eyed Junco 150
191 White-crowned Sparrow 1591
192 Golden-crowned Sparrow 8
193 White-throated Sparrow 1
194 Song Sparrow 544
195 Swamp Sparrow 1
196 Lincoln’s Sparrow 45
197 California Towhee 456
198 Rufous-crowned Sparrow 4
199 Green-tailed Towhee 4
200 Spotted Towhee 64
201 Western Meadowlark 487
202 Orchard Oriole 3
203 Hooded Oriole 2
204 Bullock’s Oriole 8
205 Baltimore Oriole 2
206 Scott’s Oriole 1
207 Red-winged Blackbird 373
208 Tricolored Blackbird 66
209 Brown-headed Cowbird 314
210 Brewer’s Blackbird 139
211 Great-tailed Grackle 3
212 Ovenbird 1
213 Northern Waterthrush 1
214 Black-and-white Warbler 1
215 Tennessee Warbler 1
216 Orange-crowned Warbler 383
217 Lucy’s Warbler 3
218 Nashville Warbler 5
219 Common Yellowthroat 196
220 American Redstart 1
221 Yellow Warbler 6
222 Grace’s Warbler 1
223 Yellow-rumped Warbler 3845
224 Black-thr. Gray Warbler 8
225 Townsend’s Warbler 135
226 Wilson’s Warbler 6
227 Summer Tanager 9
228 Western Tanager 15
229 Rose-breasted Grosbeak 1
230 Black-headed Grosbeak 1
Am. Flamingo 2
Monk Parakeet 2
Yellow-headed Parrot 2
Burrowing Parrot 42
Black-throated Magpie Jay 5
Swinhoe’s White-eye 166
Pin-tailed Whydah 1
Belding’s Savannah Sparrow 47
Large-billed Sparrow 1
Myrtle Warbler 2
scaup sp. 326
hummingbird sp. 44
dowitcher sp. 416
gull sp. 346
W./Clark’s Grebe 33
tern sp. 2
loon sp. 1
falcon sp. 1
Amazona sp. 10
swallow sp. 3
wren sp. 1
gnatcatcher sp. 1
blackbird sp. 300
Anna’s × Costa’s Hummingbird 1
American × Black Oystercatcher 3
Western × Glaucous-winged Gull 1
Hermit × Townsend’s Warbler 1
Good birding,
Philip Unitt
San Diego

some impressive scarce/rare landbird totals for December

1:35 pm

As the month of December draws to a close, I’ve compiled the month’s totals for a bunch of our scarce and rare winter-season passerines for San Diego County, below. There are some very impressive totals here. Unfortunately, in most (though not all) cases these high numbers are almost certainly NOT indicative of growing avian populations. Neither are they correlated with a boom in excellent wintering habitat–given the seemingly incessant need by so many people to overly prune or chop down trees. What they do show is the ever-increasing observer coverage in the region.
Tropical Kingbird  6
Western Flycatcher  12  (high)
Gray Flycatcher (west of desert)  12
Vermilion Flycatcher (west of desert)  80  (by far a new record)
Plumbeous Vireo  6  (a bit low)
Cassin’s Vireo  5  (above average)
“Slate-colored”/cismontanus Dark-eyed Junco  21  (high)
White-throated Sparrow  5  (much lower numbers than previous two winters)
Green-tailed Towhee  11
Hooded Oriole  7  (high)
Bullock’s Oriole  39  (above average)
Northern Waterthrush  3
Black-and-white Warbler  5
Nashville Warbler  13
American Redstart  6
Yellow Warbler  40
Black-throated Gray Warbler  32
Hermit Warbler  3
Wilson’s Warbler  20
Summer Tanager  33  (no longer surprising!)
Western Tanager  81  (high)
–Paul Lehman, San Diego

Oceanside CBC Results– 29 December 2024

11:21 am

Hello Birding Friends,

Congratulations and sincere thanks to all of the participants in Oceanside’s Christmas Bird Count yesterday for helping to make the day a success. Despite the challenge of thick morning fog, we currently have 180 species reported. While this is lower than last year’s count of 193, and down slightly from the 20-year average of 184 species, it was not due to lack of effort! Notable species for the day include Dusky-capped Flycatcher, Vaux’s Swift, American Redstart, Solitary Sandpiper, Yellow-headed Blackbird, Ruddy Turnstone, Palm Warbler, and Hermit Warbler.

Our pelagic team had its own challenges, with the boat captain taking ill. The team rallied with a seawatch and then hopped on a whale watching boat out of Oceanside. Coastal area teams pitched in and devoted extra seawatch time in their areas. Impressively, the pelagic team’s efforts added their own rarities to the list, including Cassin’s Auklet, Rhinoceros Auklet, Scripps Murrelet, and Pink-footed Shearwater. 

No new species were reported for our count circle. Missing from the count yesterday was Greater Roadrunner, although it was seen during the Count Period. The preliminary count does not include Swinhoe’s White-eye, whose numbers have risen dramatically. Final results are in the works, and will be posted soon. 

Special thanks to Paul Lehman for providing advice and for conducting the compilation, to Annette Schneider and team for the delicious chili luncheon, to Joni Ciarletta for her data management skills, and to Jane Mygatt for carefully double-checking the data. 

Wishing you great birding in the New Year, 

Patti Langen

Carlsbad


Sage Thrasher – Dos Picos

10:23 am

This morning (Monday) a Sage Thrasher was feeding on the red berries at Dos Picos County Park. The berries are found along the road on the eastern part of the park. Lots of robins feeding there as well.

Nancy Christensen
Ramona

A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.
Chinese Proverb

Dusky-capped Flycatcher Carlsbad

7:04 pm

While
doing the Oceanside-Vista CBC today (12/29), I found a Dusky-capped Flycatcher in Carlsbad. 

The
bird spent most of its time in the parking lot behind 5780 Fleet Street. 33.129262,
-117.315585. It was eating berries from the trees and calling intermittently. 

CAUTION:
Signs indicate the parking lot is for tenants only. In addition, I suspect the businesses may not want people wandering around with optical equipment during business hours — and possibly not ever.  

With
these cautions in mind, I will note that there is public parking on Fleet Street. 
-Gjon

—
– – –
Gjon Hazard 
Encinitas 

The Rise of the White-eye, Sage Thrasher, orioles/tanager

11:41 am

Yesterday, the 27th, I spent the morning doing some CBC scouting in coastal Oceanside and northern Carlsbad. Not much to show for it, but I was semi-overwhelmed by the numbers of Swinhoe’s White-eyes, notably higher than just last year. Now, I spent a lot of time checking blooming eucalyptus trees, thus helping my White-eye total…but, even so, I ended with TRIPLE-DIGIT White-eyes, probably just over 100. It included an especially large flock of 25 birds. Shades of our future??
Today, Saturday, the returning Sage Thrasher continues at the Cabrillo NM tidepool area. I had it near the main (southern) tide pool parking lot, flying from the fenced-in buildings, past the bathrooms and ranger’s shed, to the northeast out into an area full of lemonadeberry. Given that most folks, including me, have no phone reception there, one cannot play any recordings that require cell service to try to entice it to appear.
Earlier in the morning, at the base of Point Loma at the north end of Cleator Park, bordering the church property, the large line of heavily-blooming pink-flowered eucalyptus trees hosted a young male Hooded and young male Bullock’s Orioles and an adult male Summer Tanager. This row of trees is good every winter for orioles/tanagers.
–Paul Lehman, San Diego

American Redstart – UTC

9:07 am

This morning there is a female-type AMERICAN REDSTART moving through tipus in Lot P781 in the Science Research Park area in the UTC.

Mostly near here:

(32.8777758, -117.2187657)

Alex Abela
Escondido, CA

Yellow-billed Loon, not chasable

7:25 am

For general awareness, a Yellow-billed Loon, the second ever for San Diego County, was found alive in the middle of Manchester Ave on the north side of San Elijo Lagoon on 26 December 2024 by Jennifer Potter. It is currently at Project Wildlife and may be headed to International Bird Rescue in Long Beach. A photo by Ben Martin is in the following eBird checklist:

Justyn Stahl
North Park 

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