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No salesman will call, at least not from us. Maybe from someone else.
Report from the Field
Cinnamon Teal have baby-blue secondary wing feathers and (look closely) olive-green feathers on their back (Ray Juncosa 2-24-19)
SMBAS canceled the regular monthly walk for Sunday, 22 March, due to the shelter-at-home order from California Governor Newson. No group meetings, stay six feet away from everyone else. This is impossible at Malibu due to the often-narrow paths, not to mention people wanting to look through the telescope. But conscientious individuals can still go out and get some birding in. Our president, Liz Galton, files this report. (Chuck Almdale, Ed.)
I wanted to tell you, before it all gets lost in the mists of history, that Jean and I did go to the Lagoon on Sunday. The morning was gorgeous — of course it rained heavily in the afternoon, but no sign of that while we were there.
Ring-billed Gull finds a strawberry (Grace Murayama 3-19-20 Malibu Lagoon)
We were there from nine to eleven, about. We didn’t count birds, but there were at least ten Cinnamon Teal pairs, shining in the sun. Not too many other ducks. Some Shovelers and Gadwall in the channel. Oh yes and Green-winged Teal. Seven Canada Geese too — noisy. A few Snowy Egrets, in couples. Lots of Cormorants, with double crests. Quite a few Killdeer, running around on the various shores, and between the path and the lagoon. A smattering of other shorebirds, Whimbrels, Godwits, Willets. I saw only one Black-bellied Plover.
A lonely Snowy Plover by the westernmost lifeguard station on the beach
(Grace Murayama 3-19-20 Malibu Lagoon)
Snowy Plover checks out the photographer sneaking up behind them
(Grace Murayama 3-19-20 Malibu Lagoon)
I counted eighteen Snowy Plovers, but I think there were more, because when someone went by, they jumped up and scattered and it looked like more. A complement of gulls sleeping. Three terns — Jean said two Royals and one Elegant. The Royals were dressed to kill. Very smart black hairdos. The Pelicans were also in their Sunday Best, all except one, who may have been a juvenile. Our Osprey came and landed just fine on his usual perch, but could not fold his one wing properly; it seemed injured.
The Osprey claims a fish (Grace Murayama 3-19-20 Malibu Lagoon)
Some Sparrows, Song and White-crowned; Jean saw a Gnatcatcher. Other than the usual Crows and Rock Doves, I think that was it.
We had a lovely morning.
I hope everyone is both well and reasonably happy.
[Liz Galton]
Southern California has fourteen Audubon Chapters, each with their own membership areas, interests and activities. Pomona Valley Audubon Society (PVAS) is located about fifty miles east of Santa Monica and we don’t bump into each other very often. When I ran across their newsletter report on this Burrowing Owl project, I was very impressed and wanted to share it with our SMBAS members and readership, in the hope that it might spark similar projects elsewhere. Suzanne Thompson kindly supplied the photos and the following report, which is also on their blog. A small group can accomplish a lot when they put their minds to it. [Chuck Almdale, Ed.]
Burrowing Owls are small owls that use underground burrows for nest sites and shelter. These appealing birds have bullet-shaped bodies and long legs, giving the appearance of an owl popsicle, and engage in amusing antics such as turning their heads almost upside down to get a good look at birders who are trying to look at them. They are often out in daylight and thus are easier to observe than the rest of the owl clan.
1. Burrowing Owls
At one time these owls were very common in California and, even as recently as 10 years ago, they were a common sight in the Chino and Ontario areas of the Pomona Valley. However, loss of habitat, the use of pesticides, and the killing of burrow-excavating ground squirrels have drastically reduced their numbers.
2. Eyes and Ears
Our Eyes and Ears on Burrowing Owls Project focuses on four areas in Chino and Ontario where there are still active nesting grounds for the owls: The goal is to maintain a healthy, viable breeding population of Burrowing Owls in the PVAS area. Each of the four nesting sites is critical because it currently supports or has the potential to support a significant number of active burrows. The areas are close enough for owls to travel between them, thereby promoting genetic diversity.
3. The Preserve Sign
A major focus has been the Burrowing Owl Preserve in Chino, a 24-acre site that was established about ten years ago to mitigate for the loss of owl habitat due to development. Owls nested in the artificial burrows initially but eventually the artificial burrows fell into disrepair and were no longer used. PVAS has established a collaborative relationship with the homeowners’ association that is responsible for the preserve.
4. Los Osos High School group
The restoration plan included the installation of eight new artificial burrows, weeding to remove invasive weeds, and the sowing of California native wildflower seeds. The work started in the fall of 2019 when high school students built the wooden burrow boxes in their shop class using the San Diego Zoo Research Institute plans for an improved burrow. PVAS members, along with college and high school students, got together for several weeding parties at the preserve to remove extensive stands of tumbleweed and other weeds. Replacing invasive weeds with native plants should attract more insects and lizards, thereby improving forage for the owls.
5. Finishing the boxes
6. Weeding the Slope
Over 55 volunteers attended the two burrow installation days in late January. Some volunteers completed the burrows, securing buckets to the lids so the burrows could be accessed for cleaning or banding, and adding hardware cloth, legs, and tubing. Others worked on weeding or removing brush.
7. A fully assembled nesting box and tube tunnels
A fully assembled box has two entrances and nineteen feet of tubing. The first three feet of tubing at the entrance is larger in diameter to create an “anti-predator patio.” This allows one or more owls to quickly run into the burrow if a predator appears. The narrower tubing closer to the box should stop predators from continuing down the tube and into the nest.
8. A mini-excavator from Southern California Edison
9A. Digging the trench and laying the tubing
9B. Filling the trench, nest entrance below
Southern California Edison volunteers brought and operated a mini-excavator to dig most of the trenches. The excavator crew finished their work by early afternoon and teams of volunteers began covering the boxes and tubing with poultry netting and hand filling the trenches.
10. Digging by hand #1
11. Digging by hand #2
The mini-excavator could not handle the very steep slope at the last installation site, so a crew of 10 volunteers hand dug those trenches in hard, compacted soil. After a day and half of hard work with shovels and pickaxes, the hand-dug trenches were finished, and the burrows and tubing were installed.
12. Burrow entrance
When the burrows are installed, all that shows above ground are the burrow entrances, two for each burrow.
13. Seeding
In February, we waited anxiously for rain so the native plant seeds could be sowed. Finally, in early March, when some substantial rain was forecast, the seeds were spread and lightly worked into the ground.
14. Future Tenants
The future holds more weeding and seeding, the installation of low perches for the owls, and, we hope, Burrowing Owls moving into their new digs.
Above Text: Suzanne Thompson
Photo Credits: Carol Coy, Kim Dillbeck, Sherry Schmidt, Suzanne Thompson
Information contact: Suzanne Thompson, Chair, PVAS Eyes and Ears on Burrowing Owls
Alfalfa leafcutting bees are way better at pollinating alfalfa flowers than honeybees. They don’t mind getting thwacked in the face by the spring-loaded blooms. And that’s good, because hungry cows depend on their hard work to make milk.
This is another installment of the PBS Deep Look series. If no film or link appears in this email, go to the blog to view it by clicking on the blog title above. If the film stops & starts in an annoying manner, press pause (lower left double bars ||) to let it buffer and get ahead of you. [Chuck Almdale]
Malibu Marbled Godwits
Malibu Lagoon has hosted many sandpipers over the years. Of the world’s ninety-six species of sandpiper, SMBAS has recorded twenty-six at the lagoon, from the diminutive Least Sandpiper to the Long-billed Curlew. Among them is the very showy and reliable Marble Godwit. They are one of our favorites – not only because they are easy to identify with their large size, warm brown plumage, long dark legs and upcurved two-tone bill – but because their feeding behavior and interactions are interesting and fun to watch and they are not overly shy of humans.
Marbled Godwit (Chris Tosdevin 2-23-20 Malibu Lagoon)
Many people think of sandpipers as those little birds that run back and forth with the lapping of the waves. That bird is likely the 8″ Sanderling. But sandpipers come in many sizes, from the 5.5″ Least Sandpiper to the 25″ Far Eastern Curlew. Birders call the smallest sandpipers – those 9″ and under – “peeps,” because that’s what they all sound like: “peep peep peep.” But whatever the size or name, they’re all members of the Sandpiper family Scolopacidae.
Marbled Godwit is the largest of the world’s four species of Godwit. At 18″ from tip of bill to tip of tail, this sandpiper is second in size only to curlews, of which the 23″ Long-billed Curlew is the only one common in the lower forty-eight states.
Dragging the wing tip (Chris Tosdevin 2-23-20 Malibu Lagoon)
Marbled Godwits winter along our Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific coasts. For their May to August breeding season, they migrate to the short-grass prairie region of North and South Dakota, northeastern Montana, southeastern Alberta, southern Saskatchewan and southwestern Manitoba.
Notice the tip of the lower bird’s upper bill
(Chris Tosdevin 2-23-20 Malibu Lagoon)
They have one brood per breeding season, incubating their clutch of 3 to 5 brown-spotted buff or olive eggs for 23 to 26 days. The nest is a shallow depression in the ground, often lined with soft grasses and lichen. As with nearly all ground-nesting birds, the young are precocial, born down-covered, eyes open and able to walk. After only one day in the nest they are ready to follow their parents in foraging for small fish and invertebrates of all sorts. At about three weeks of age they are ready to fly. [All About Birds]
Check the tip now. Flexible. (Chris Tosdevin 2-23-20 Malibu Lagoon)
There are four godwit species.
Black-tailed Limosa limosa, length 14.2-17.3″, (one) wing 6.6-9.4″, bill 2.9-3.9″; Old World, breeding France to China and Kamchatka Peninsula, wintering sub-Saharan Africa to India and Australia.
Hudsonian Limosa haemastica, length 14.6-16.5″, (one) wing 7.9-9.0″, bill 2.5-3.8″; New World, breeding w. Alaska to Hudson Bay, wintering s. South America.
Marbled Godwits (Grace Murayama 2-28-20 Malibu Lagoon)
Bar-tailed Limosa lapponica, length 14.6-16.1″, (one) wing 7.5-9.1″, bill 3.0-4.3″; Old World + w. Alaska, breeding high Arctic Norway to w. Alaska, wintering England to sub-Saharan Africa to India, China, Australia and New Zealand.
Marbled Godwit Limosa fedoa, length 16.5-18.9″, (one) wing 8.1-10.0″, bill 3.2-4.8″; New World, breeding range given above.
Black-tailed is rare in North America (occurring yearly in very low numbers), Bar-tailed breeds in w. Alaska in small numbers, Hudsonian is uncommon outside its central flyway breeding and migration range, Marbled is common on all coasts in winter.
Meet and greet? (Grace Murayama 2-28-20 Malibu Lagoon)
Etymology: Scolopacidae: Latin scolopax, “the woodcock or snipe,” Latin -aceus, “resembling,” -idae suffix indicating family; thus the avian family resembling the woodcock or snipe. Godwit: origin uncertain. May be from Anglo-Saxon god, “good”; Anglo-Saxon whita, “animal,” “bird,” and more literally “good eating,” although Elliot Coues says this is too easy to be true. Limosa: Brisson. Latin limosa, “muddy,” from the habitat.
Perhaps a bit more than just friendly (Grace Murayama 2-28-20 Malibu Lagoon)
Etymology: L. fedoa (Linnaeus): origin unknown. Coues says, “The word goes back to Turner (1544) ‘Anglorum goduuittam, sive fedoam,’ and has been variously applied to godwits and some other birds before and since Linnaeus named this species Scolopax fedoa in 1758.” Newton regards it as a Latinized form of some English name of the European godwit, “now apparently lost beyond recovery.” Compare to the local Venetian (Italian) name vetola for a godwit. [Dictionary of American Bird Names, Choate; Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names, Jobling.]
One good poke deserves another (Grace Murayama 2-28-20 Malibu Lagoon)
Here’s a good mnemonic for beginning birders: The curlew’s bill “curls low.” The godwit’s bill curves up to God (or at least upwards towards where our gods have long been purported to reside).
At Malibu Lagoon, we have sighted Marbled Godwits 172 times out of 274 visits, or 63% of the time, with a total of 1964 individual birds. There are no sightings at all for June, only four occurrences (33 birds) for May and three (10 birds) for July, but all other months have sighting occurrences in the double digits. Our highest one-day count was 135 for November 26, 2017. They are reliable visitors, always a joy to see. [Chuck Almdale]
How can aggressive, predatory, and cannibalistic birds coexist in crowded breeding colonies? Explore the lives and territorial interactions of Herring and Great Black-backed gulls in a breeding colony on Maine’s Appledore Island.
A film from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. If no film or link appears in this email, go to the blog to view it by clicking on the blog title above. If the film stops & starts in an annoying manner, press pause (lower left double bars ||) to let it buffer and get ahead of you. The Lab is a member-supported organization; they welcome your membership and support. [Chuck Almdale]
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