The beach breach (C. Almdale 12/23/12)

Within a few days after rain-swelled Malibu Creek broke through the beach, reports about hordes of gulls at the lagoon began flowing in from L.A. area birders. Estimates ranged from 2000 to 5000 birds.  Always on the lookout for storm-brought vagrants, birders searched through the crowd; alas, nothing rare was found.

Gulls on low tide exposed beach, Santa Monica Mtns in background
(C. Almdale 12/23/12)

We found the largest gull flock on the mud flat between the channel mouth and the west end of PCH bridge. Every 10-20 minutes they’d fling themselves into the sky to swirl in a dense cloud; we looked for raptors – Peregrine Falcon for instance – frightening them, but saw none. Perhaps they were just jumpy. By the time we got to the beach and began sorting through them, most had moved to the sand and stones exposed by the lowering tide.  I counted (roughly) 2600 birds.  Out on the sea, well past the kelp beds were two additional gull flocks with easily as many as on shore. Even farther out were many more gulls as well as Brown Pelicans and cormorants flying and diving; southbound shearwaters streamed through them. Except for the shearwaters, none of these birds are included in the counts below. There were probably far more shearwaters than the 200 I recorded, Although they were really too far for positive ID, I’m calling them Black-vented, as this species will now be heading south to their nesting islands off the coast of Baja California. As usual, the Brandt’s and Pelagic Cormorants were on the offshore rocks or swimming nearby, while the Double-crested Cormorants occupied the snags in the lagoon.

Some of the snag-loving cormorants (C. Almdale 12/23/12)

Dredging work on the channel is finished. More flagged plants are in appearance. The cement ‘winter tidal clock’ path has advanced, and one of the bird observation platforms is going up. The originally scheduled completion date was Jan. 31, but Mark Abramson informed me that the contractor received a time extension for additional work, and worst case completion date should be March 1.

Migrants and wintering birds continue to arrive, including: Surf Scoter, Turkey Vulture, Herring Gull, Wrentit and American Goldfinch.. The last two species are certainly commonly seen in SoCal but have appeared on our monthly walks only 13 and 10 times, respectively, out of 279 recorded trips. The Wrentit was in a bush near Adamson boat house; the goldfinches were eating berries in the brush between PCH and the lagoon parking lot.

Other continuing wintering birds were: Brant, Green-winged Teal, Bufflehead, Red-throated & Pacific Loons, Glaucous-winged Gull, the female Belted Kingfisher, Say’s Phoebe, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Orange-crowned and Yellow-rumped Warblers, and Lesser Goldfinch. A juvenile Red-tailed Hawk was apparently snoozing in one of the cypresses at the SW corner of the channel area, a common raptor roosting site.

Six Snowy Plovers surround beach wrack (C. Almdale 12/23/12)

Snowy Plover PV:YB (left leg Pink above Violet: right leg Yellow above Blue), present on Surfrider Beach since Sept., is still there. Most of the 45 Snowy Plovers were found alongside the gulls on the exposed sand and rocky shore.

Adamson boat house view of channel & gulls (C. Almdale 12/23/12)

Although cool, it was a very pleasant, sunny day. About a half dozen new faces were with us, including Lucinda, a young woman from Argentina who has been watching and photographing birds for about 1½ years. Mary Ann Webster of the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter stopped to thank us for our many comments on Malibu Patch blog. Some small children played in the outlet stream until I warned their parents that the water is most polluted right after rainstorms such as we’d recently seen.

Our next three field trips:   Antelope Valley Raptor Search, 12 Jan., 8:00am; Malibu Lagoon, 27 Jan., 8:30am; Ballona Creek Jetty, 9 Feb., 8:00am.
Our next program:  Tuesday, 5 Feb., 7:30 pm.   Bird Photography, presented by Ralph Clevenger.  The usual reminders will be emailed from the blog.

NOTE: Our 10 a.m. Parent’s & Kids Birdwalk will probably resume on 24 March, 2013.

Links: Unusual birds at Malibu Lagoon
Aerial photo of Malibu Lagoon from 9/23/02.
Prior checklists: July-Dec’11, Jan-June’11, July-Dec ’10, Jan-June ’10, Jul-Dec ‘09, and Jan-June ‘09.

Comments on Bird Lists Below
Total Birds:   Dec. total birds of 3604 are 30% above average primarily due to the gulls which were 50% above average. This is not outrageously high; we’ve recorded similar numbers previously in Nov, Dec, or Jan, including over 4000 gulls on 12/26/10.  Monthly total bird numbers relative to average continue to be up, down, up, down since the project began last June.
Species Diversity:  December 2012 with 63 species was slightly below (-4%) the  6-year average of 65.7.

Summary of species diversity from the 6-year average so far:  June -10%, July +10%, Aug. -6%, Sep. -20%, Oct. +5%, Nov +2%, Dec -4%. Still, the only constant is constant change.
10-year comparison summaries are available near the bottom of our Lagoon Project Page.   [Chuck Almdale]