11:37 am
About an hour ago, around 10:00 10:15, I stumbled into yet another, new, male Cape May Warbler. This one is far far away from Solana Beach and is up on Otay Mesa near the border crossings. A bunch of the big truck warehousing facilities here have tipus in their parking lots or lining the streets. I started coming here only last winter when I didn’t have many birds overall, but did have one Plumbeous Vireo. Today, there are definitely far more Yellow rumps than I had in the overall area last year but had nothing good until literally my final stop, and voila! The Cape May is a male and is slightly brighter than the Solana Beach bird in that it has more chestnut in the cheek. Whether it is a bright immature male or, in fact, an adult male is not certain. Photos later in my eBird report.
The bird is along a short cul-de-sac named Neils Bohr Court, which is off of Heinrich Hertz Drive, which is just east of the end of Highway 125 and not far northeast of the Siempra Viva exit on the 905, the final USA exit. The bird is frequenting the tipu trees that line the right side of the road, specifically those that are from 2/3 of the way down to near the end of the line. Many winter Cape Mays like nectar, and sure enough in addition to feeding in the tipas, the bird also went to the blooming coral trees that are just a little farther down on the right, and then returned to the tipus. The entire curb along Neils Bohr is red so no parking allowed officially, although I suspect nobody’s going to really care if you’re standing near your car, but for legal parking go just to the end of the cul-de-sac, just past the coral tree, and there is a Holiday Inn Express where you can park in their lot. To the right of the streetside tipus the bird also visited a couple tipus up against a truck warehousing facility which you can still easily see from the sidewalk, and I would suggest staying out of their parking lot because while I was in there a manager came out and asked what I was doing and when I told him I’d only be 5 or 10 minutes looking at a rare bird he said okay but then he added that this is private property.
Much farther west at the Siempre Viva Pond, the immature Snow Goose continues as does Yellow-headed blackbird and at least 14 Wilsons Snipe along the east side of the pond.
Earlier in the morning, the Leon Avenue/Berry Park Bay-breasted Warbler and adult male Orchard Oriole both continued.