[Posted by Chuck Almdale]

Here’s a species that doesn’t show up very often at the lagoon. Or anywhere else in Los Angeles County for that matter.

Discovered by Femi Faminu, who often birds with us (and by herself) at the lagoon, except when she thinks it’s going to thundershower. She sent the photo to Kimball Garrett (NHMOLAC, Ret., now of Juniper Hills) who confirmed the species, later posting on our local bird alert listserve LACoBirds https://groups.io/g/LACoBirds/message/4449:

The Nelson’s Sparrow found and photographed by Femi Faminu at Malibu Lagoon this afternoon would appear to be the first record for Los Angeles County since a fall migrant was found by the Southwest Bird Study Club inland at Piute Ponds 25 September 2017. Another fall migrant was found by Chuck Almdale at the Pepperdine University Ponds in Malibu 27 September 1992. Prior to that the only published record for the county was of two birds in January-February 1944 in the Venice area (likely the northern portions of the old Del Rey marshes which were largely obliterated by the construction of Marina del Rey in the very early 1960s). [This, of course, was prior to the split of Nelson’s and Saltmarsh Sparrows, when the combined species was known as the “Sharp-tailed Sparrow.”]

Given what we know of the status of this species in California, it could well have been semi-regular in fall and winter in salt marshes in L. A. county back when such habitat exceeded postage-stamp size. In recent years the species has been seen rarely but with some regularity in estuaries in the other coastal southern California counties. It’s possible the Malibu Lagoon bird will winter there — but of course this species is good at hiding in continuous marsh vegetation and seeing it may depend on tide levels and good fortune.

It’s possible that the bird may stay near the lagoon for a while, but this species are notorious skulkers in marsh vegetation and difficult to find or ID.

Speaking personally – as my name was mentioned above – I do recall seeing the bird at the north end of the easternmost pond on the front lawn of Pepperdine University on a monthly field trip of Santa Monica Bay Audubon, a mere 32 years ago. While I was apparently the first to report this particular sighting (which comes as news to me), I might (or might not) have been the first to identify it, and I definitely did not discover it. Maja Block, former board member and past president of SMBAS found it skulking in a bush near the pond and alerted the rest of us.

Maja and Femi are similar in regards to their preferred birding behavior, which consists largely in wandering off by themselves, often in distant locales, sometimes to discover something wonderful, sometimes to get tangled in the bushes or bang their head on an airplane wing, as Maja did on a trip to Antarctica. When other birders would notice either of them staring fixedly at something through their binoculars, it would often prove worthwhile to go see just what they were looking at.