Bird Checklists for California & Los Angeles County
[Posted by Chuck Almdale]
California Bird Checklist
The latest update to the Official California Checklist — as per the California Bird Records Committee — is always here: https://www.californiabirds.org/checklist.asp. It’s a multi-page list, not a handy pocket-sized checklist.
Kimball Garrett posted this recent update (5 Jan 2022) to the list:
The California Bird Records Committee has completed a review of two more naturalized bird species and has now officially added them to the California state list: Mitred Parakeet (Psittacara mitratus) and Lilac-crowned Parrot (Amazona finschi).
These two additions bring the state list to 679 species of which 15 are established introductions. Following the AOS Checklist, they are placed on the California list under family Psittacidae in the following order:
Mitred Parakeet (Psittacara mitratus)
[Yellow-chevroned Parakeet]
[Red-crowned Parrot]
Lilac-crowned Parrot (Amazona finschi)The CBRC web site has been updated to reflect these additions: https://www.californiabirds.org/
The Committee is also reviewing proposals to add Nanday Parakeet (Aratinga nenday) and Red-masked Parakeet (Psittacara erythrogenys) to the state list; those proposals are still in review.
Los Angeles County Bird Checklist
The closest I could find to the equivalent of the Calif. checklist is this PDF file, also from Kimball Garrett, of 523 species as of April 2017:
https://nhm.org/sites/default/files/2019-05/avifauna_la_checklistnew2016aou.pdf
It’s also a multi-page list, not a handy pocket-sized checklist.
The prior LA County checklist from 2006, which actually looks like a checklist, is available on the San Fernando Valley Audubon website here.
Kimball Garrett posted this recent update (5 Jan 2022) to the LA County list:
The CBRC has recently added Mitred Parakeet (Psittacara mitratus) and Lilac-crowned Parrot (Amazona finschi) to the official California state list as naturalized non-native species. Since both of these species are well-established in Los Angeles County, they are now officially added to the county bird list as well.
Also, the CBRC accepted a record of Mexican Duck (Anas diazi) from Los Angeles County: a bird shot by a hunter (specimen photographed) at Piute Ponds on 18 December 2019. This adds another species to the county list. [Two other county reports of Mexican Duck, from the San Gabriel Coastal Basin Spreading Grounds 23-26 December 2014 and from Santa Fe Dam 1 May 2016 received much support from the CBRC in the first round of circulation but are going through another round of voting.]
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SANTA MONICA BAY AUDUBON SOCIETY BLOG 
gracias
Re: black-headed conure (nanday parakeet). We have seen them residing in solstice canyon on the xmas count for maybe 20+ years. Very healthy raucous and thriving, dozens every year. Obviously a resident!
Ciao EG
>
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If you live along the southern edge of the Santa Monica Mtns., including the coast, and spend any time at all in the riparian canyons, the Nanday Parakeet (previously Conure) is – in my experience – by far the most common parrot or parakeet. So, as with you, it surprises me that these other psittacids are listed as residents but not the Nanday. But these others are really common and abundant in other locales like the east San Fernando Valley and the San Gabriel Valley. The Yellow-chevroned is widespread throughout the central LA basin from the coast and into the San Gabriel Valley. So it depends on where you do your birding.
Here’s a link to the Calif Parrot project, run out of the LA Nat. Hist Museum: https://www.californiaparrotproject.org/
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