miscellanea, including scoter flocks & Thick-billed Kingbird

On Weds the 1st, 4 Snow Geese continued in the South Bay/TRV area, the high-tide roosting Pacific Golden-Plover continued at the Salt Works, a late Western Kingbird was with a few Cassin’s near the Sunset ball fields, and the Plumbeous Vireo continued at the B&B.

Several other folks saw the continuing Thick-billed Kingbird today along Monument Road east of Hollister at around 11:00-11:15 AM, which the same site but is a couple hours later than a few days ago. This bird clearly has a feeding route that takes it over LONG distances in the TRV (and possibly north to Nestor), and it doesn’t seem to follow the same schedule every day–so it can be a bit of a pain to find (unless its evening roost site can be found).

For the second year in a row, very large flocks of Surf Scoters are accumulating along the coast between the southern Silver Strand and Border Field State Park, as well as up off the Hotel del Coronado. Today, there were 2000+ birds between the southern Strand and the IB Pier, with the flock just north of the pier containing a (continuing) female Black Scoter. A male White-winged was photo’d by others a couple days ago off Border Field. Presumably numbers will continue to grow during November, and some number of Blacks and White-wingeds will likely turn up. Good numbers of Surf Scoters are also now on nearby South San Diego Bay as well.

In other recent news, a Western Flycatcher and male “Slate-colored” Dark-eyed Junco were at the northeast corner of Balboa Park, and a male Anna’s X Costa’s Hummingbird is in Tierrasanta.

–Paul Lehman, San Diego