SE Balboa Park, 29 Feb 2020

Dear friends,

We enjoyed a good two hours of birding in Balboa Park this morning as part of the bird festival, before coming into the museum for a tour of the bird collection and demonstration of specimen preparation.

The biggest surprise was an adult male Orchard Oriole, in the trees at the bottom of the dip where Russ Blvd. dead ends between 26^th and 28^th streets (32.7195° N, 117.1352° W). As far as I know, this individual has not been reported previously. In the same tree was a female Yellow Warbler, which I’d seen previously there on 18 January. Also a Western Tanager stopped there briefly. On our second pass of the trees just north of the restroom along 28^th Street, we saw the male Black-and-white Warbler and two Lark Sparrows. A couple of juncos were singing, more clue to that species’ spread as a breeding species through the park and the city of San Diego as a whole. At least two Chipping Sparrows. A pair of Cooper’s Hawks circled overhead, the male in display flight. Finally, a male Merlin perched very obligingly at length n a leafless eucalyptus tree.

On our way into the museum, in a cedar tree at the south end of the parking lot on the east side, we noticed a pair of Bushtits working on a nest. It was a classic situation for a Bushtit nest, woven around several slender parallel hanging twigs, supporting the nest from the side. I’ve seen Bushtit nests in the last week of February several times previously.

Good birding, and happy leap day,

Philip Unitt

San Diego