[Text by Chuck Almdale; photos by Marie Barnidge-McIntyre, Lillian Johnson & Chris Tosdevin. Trip list at the end.]

Because nearly all of Pacific Coast Highway (PCH to locals) was closed due to the enormous brush and residential fires followed closely by inches of rain – instead of our typical 0.2-0.4 inches – followed even more closely by landslides of mud and rock due to the removal of all soil-stabilizing vegetation by the fire [see start of this sentence], we canceled our official bird walk, just as we had last month (before the fires and the rains), and substituted this unofficial birdwalk. Nevertheless and to my enormous surprise, 16 people showed up including people new to the lagoon and several new to birding. Amazing. Anyone coming from Santa Monica would have to add an hour to their usual travel time to get there.

The Gods of Birding – there are many, all with large beautifully-feathered wings – smiled upon their perseverance and favoured (some of these Gods happen to be British) their devotion with a Very Special Bird. Chris and Ruth Tosdevin, British Birders, were even more favoured as they were alerted by the sudden lifting off of the birds in the lagoon, looked around for an approaching raptor and witnessed the bird fly in. Chris shouted at us and we stopped talking to look.

We don’t get a lot of Bald Eagles at the lagoon, to put it mildly. Southern California doesn’t get a lot of Bald Eagles. I’d seen one, once, in Los Angeles county about 40 years ago, sitting on a light pole on the south end of the Marina del Rey outer jetty. It had probably flown over from Santa Catalina Island where they nest. This one may have done the same thing.

It alit upon a rock in the lagoon, as you can see. It stayed a few minutes, then flew a short distance to another, apparently preferable, rock, and stood motionless. The light was terrible as we were looking directly into the sun. [If the photos look a bit washed-out or overexposed, that’s why.] I suggested we move around the channels to the 2nd viewpoint nearer the beach. This is actually a long walk, maybe 1/2 mile, and by the time we got there, the bird had flown. None of us saw it leave.

Now for a short digression, of interest primarily to birding wonks and inveterate listers, filled with dates and numbers. If this makes your eyes glaze over and brain begin to hurt, skip past the separator lines to the next attractive photograph.

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Later, back at home,I checked eBird to see how many – if any – Bald Eagle sightings had ever been reported for the lagoon, and somehow managed to convince eBird to create the line graph below of all Bald Eagles ever recorded at the lagoon. Easiest to glean from this graph below is that there have been nine sightings total, including ours, falling between the 1st week of January and the 2nd week of March, in weeks beginning: 1 in 1/1, 1 in 1/15, 4 in 2/22, 2 in 3/8, 1 in 3/15 (hiding at the midpoint of the straight line from 3/8 to 3/22). The very first sighting was on 7 Jan 1991 by Lee Snyder (bird list, all years, first observed). It’s not a common visitor at the lagoon.

At this point I ran across a peculiarity about eBird, one which renders its handling and presentation of data unreliable to my mind. I accessed the chart above and data display below within a minute or two of each other, but the top one gives me 9 total sightings and the bottom one says 13. Well…which is it? Were there nine or thirteen Bald Eagles sighted at the lagoon?

In an abortive attempt to determine some dates for the other sightings, I made the great mistake of running the line graph for about 20 different date ranges, at which point I decided this system is completely nuts and quit. Here’s one sample chart from this bunch of tests, for period 1900-1970 (that’s important). It claims to show sightings of one Bald Eagle in each of 6 different weeks starting on dates: 1/1, 1/15, 1/22, 2/22, 3/8, 3/15. Except for 1/22, these are the same weeks for the birds actually (I think,f but am no longer certain of anything) sighted during period Jan 1991 – Feb 2025.

Anyone looking at the data for a more common bird with far more sightings at a particular location would be unlikely to see something screwy like this, as whatever is causing this/these error(s) would be lost in the noise of data.

So…back to my earlier question: were there a total of nine or thirteen Bald Eagles at Malibu? My money’s on neither. I think the answer is five: one each in the weeks starting 1/1, 1/15, 2/22, 3/8, 3/15. I suspect the (supposed) sighting in week 1/22 got tossed out, if it ever existed. It didn’t make it into the line graphs for the later periods.

If there is some eBird maven out there who can demonstrate why I’m completely wrong and eBird is correct in all its presentations of the Bald Eagle sightings at Malibu Lagoon, please drop me a line and I’ll be happy to publish my errors and their explanation. Until then, I hope this is some extraordinary anomaly pertaining only to Bald Eagles and doesn’t mean the entire eBird system is shot through with bad coding and broken algorithms.

I probably should have put the above eBird discovery/complaint into a separate blog posting, but there it is. We now return to our regularly scheduled field trip report.

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Well…dingy bird totalling nitpicking aside, seeing any Bald Eagle anywhere in SoCal, especially at Malibu Lagoon where I’ve birded for 45 years, is a notable event and a hard act to follow. But instead of packing it up and going home for beer and popcorn, we forged on.

We had some brief semi-excitement down at the beach where the rocks were now exposed as the tide was withdrawing towards -0.4 ft. at 1:16pm. We spotted two sandpipers that looked a little odd. (And – of course – once again we were looking into the sun, unhelpful for viewing and photographing.) The birds – which kept disappearing behind boulders – looked an awful lot like Pectoral Sandpipers.

Well, you might not think so looking at these photos, but at the time it seemed reasonable…somewhat reasonable, anyway. Pectoral Sandpipers in all plumages have a sharp cutoff of breast streaks. The photo above and the right one below give the best impression of this. But frankly, none of the photos really give that impression which we (or was it just me?) at the time. The problem was the streaks were just too faint. Could they be bleached by the sun; were these birds soon to molt into bolder plumage? Who knows?

It seemed to me that the forehead was too steep for Least, and the bill too thick and blunt and the shoulder plumage (scapulars) too plain gray-brown. Most Leasts at the lagoon have warmer brown backs, sloping foreheads and thinner, pointier, curvier bills.

In my research on this bird (aka poking around through a couple of books and some on-line photos) I ran across the fact that “all three pale-legged stints, Least, Long-toed and Temminck’s, often have central toe longer than tarsus, but only Long-toed has central toe obviously longer than bill.” (Shorebirds: Hayman, Marchant & Prater, 1986) I did the ruler-to-the-screen test on the bird above right and measured that middle toe at 6.25% longer than the bill; long, but not “obviously longer.”

However…among other problems…Pectorals just aren’t here this time of year (showing up in early April per Birds of Southern California, Garrett & Dunn, 1981), the base of the bill is pale at all ages and the head and back plumage wasn’t exactly right. It’s also larger – 8.75″ vs 6″ – but the only birds in the vicinity were Black-bellied Plovers which at 11.5″ is significantly larger that both species and thus not particularly useful (to me) for size comparisons. Chris and Marie reported them to eBird (yes, eBird again!) as Leasts and I – back home and looking at photos, came to the same conclusion.

Above: A real Pectoral Sandpiper at the lagoon who also has a long toe. (Chris Tosdevin 9/19-24/22)

Plants were blooming on the beach, and the assorted bumps in the sand near the lagoon are beginning to look like real dunes with real dune vegetation on them.

Our chapter plant maven Grace Murayama identified the plant below as Tetragonia tetragonioides or New Zealand Spinach (or Warrigal greens), a prostrate, sprawling plant in the fig-marigold family (Aizoaceae) used as a leafy vegetable and native to Australia and New Zealand. We originally thought it was some sort of Salt Bush (or Saltbush), most likely Atriplex lentiformes var. breweri, Brewer’s Salt Bush. The underside of the leaf had tiny salt crystals on it. I wonder if it floated across the Pacific or did some sailor toss his salad overboard.

Orange-crowned Warblers can show up just about any month of the year.

California Towhees seem to be permanent residents of the vegetated area around the lagoon, although we don’t always see them as they rarely perch high in a bush.

The Osprey was on its favorite lagoon-adjacent electric pole at the back of Malibu Colony. Another was on the Adamson House flagpole across the lagoon. They were chirping at (or to) one another.

The Belted Kingfisher often perches on the pipe supports on the PCH bridge, barely visible in the photo above. The bird’s cinnamon flanks are nearly the same shade of red as the pipe rust. Except for last month, there’s been a female Belted Kingfisher since last August; probably the same individual.

I haven’t keep track of this but I’d estimate that 25% of Glaucous-winged Gulls at the lagoon are actually “Olympic” Gulls, hybrid Glaucous-winged X Western Gull. The main difference is the darker wing-tips and tail. In first-year Glaucous-winged, these are the same pale color as the rest of the back and wings.

The sole male Red-breasted Merganser in the lagoon was looking especially plumy.

It was altogether a very nice – albeit unofficial – day at the lagoon, so much so that most of us didn’t leave until it was almost noon.

Malibu Lagoon on eBird as of 2-28-25: 8446 lists, 2710 eBirders, 320 species
Most recent species added: Nelson’s Sparrow, 11/29/24 by Femi Faminu (SMBAS member).

Birds new for the season: Canada Goose, Cinnamon Teal, Anna’s Hummingbird, Western Sandpiper, Glaucous-winged Gull, Red-throated Loon, Common Loon, Pelagic Cormorant, Cooper’s Hawk, Bald Eagle, Nuttall’s Woodpecker (H), Say’s Phoebe, Common Raven, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Western Bluebird, Dark-eyed Junco. “New for the season” means it has been three or more months since last recorded on our trips.

Many, many thanks to photographers: Marie Barnidge-McIntyre, Lillian Johnson, & Chris Tosdevin.

Upcoming SMBAS scheduled field trips; no reservations or Covid card necessary unless specifically mentioned:

• Sepulveda Basin, Sat. Mar 15, 8 am.
• Malibu Lagoon, Sun. Mar 23, 8:30 (adults) & 10 am (parents & kids)
• Ken Hahn Park Sat. Apr 12., 8am. (Proposed, not yet finalized)
• These and any other trips we announce for the foreseeable future will depend upon expected status of the Covid/flu/etc. pandemic, not to mention landslides, at trip time. Any trip announced may be canceled shortly before trip date if it seems necessary. By now any other comments should be superfluous.
• Link to Programs & Field Trip schedule.

The next SMBAS Zoom program: Belonging on an Island – Birds, Extinction, and Evolution in Hawai’i, with Daniel Lewis. Tuesday, 4 March, 7:30 p.m.,

The SMBAS 10 a.m. Parent’s & Kids Birdwalk will resume when we can again schedule official monthly walks. Reservations not necessary for families, but for groups (scouts, etc.), call Jean (213-522-0062).

Links: Unusual birds at Malibu Lagoon
9/23/02 Aerial photo of Malibu Lagoon
More recent aerial photo

Prior checklists:
2023: Jan-June, July-Dec 2024: Jan-June, July-Dec
2021: Jan-July,  July-Dec 2022: Jan-June, July-Dec
2020: Jan-July, July-Dec  2019: Jan-June, July-Dec  
2018: Jan-June, July-Dec  2017: Jan-June, July-Dec
2016: Jan-June, July-Dec  2015: Jan-May, July-Dec
2014: Jan-July,  July-Dec  2013: Jan-June, July-Dec
2012: Jan-June, July-Dec 2011: Jan-June, July-Dec
2010: Jan-June, July-Dec  2009: Jan-June, July-Dec

The 10-year comparison summaries created during the Lagoon Reconfiguration Project period, remain available—despite numerous complaints—on our Lagoon Project Bird Census Page. Very briefly summarized, the results unexpectedly indicate that avian species diversification and numbers improved slightly during the restoration period June’12-June’14.

Many thanks to Marie Barnidge-McIntyre, Femi Faminu, Lillian Johnson, & Chris Tosdevin for contributions made to this month’s census counts.

The species lists below was re-sequenced as of 12/31/24 to agree with the California Bird Records Committee Official California Checklist. If part of the right side of the chart below is hidden, there’s a slider button inconveniently located at the bottom end of the list. The numbers 1-9 left of the species names are keyed to the nine categories of birds at the bottom. Updated lagoon bird check lists can be downloaded here.
[Chuck Almdale]

	Malibu Census 2024-25	9/22	10/27	11/24	12/22	1/26	2/23
	Temperature	67-75	64-68	54-59	56-62	57-59	57-70
	Tide Lo/Hi Height	L+2.09	H+4.75	L+2.06	L+2.47	H+5.49	H+4.79
	Tide Time	0611	0742	1139	0939	0634	0526
1	Canada Goose						2
1	Cinnamon Teal						5
1	Northern Shoveler					6
1	Gadwall	30	38	26	32	89	9
1	American Wigeon	1	13	12	35
1	Mallard	8	28	10	20	22	6
1	Green-winged Teal		4	1	10	5	16
1	Ring-necked Duck	4		3
1	Lesser Scaup					2
1	Surf Scoter				2		15
1	Bufflehead			9	10	23
1	Hooded Merganser		1
1	Red-breasted Merganser			10	13	12	8
1	Ruddy Duck		28	22	35	37	17
2	Pied-billed Grebe	5	10	8	5	4	7
2	Eared Grebe		4	1		1
2	Western Grebe		28		1	34	30
7	Feral Pigeon	1	4	4		6	5
7	Mourning Dove	1	1
8	Anna’s Hummingbird		2	1			3
8	Allen’s Hummingbird	4	2	1	3	1	5
2	Sora			2
2	American Coot	72	340	560	705	797	45
5	Black Oystercatcher			2	2
5	Black-bellied Plover	67	136	75	50	30	30
5	Killdeer	12	20	1	30	2	4
5	Semipalmated Plover	3
5	Snowy Plover	42	18	34	27	2	2
5	Whimbrel	2	7	15	4	8	5
5	Marbled Godwit			12	25	3	2
5	Ruddy Turnstone	3	4	6	4	2	4
5	Sanderling	1	5	200	100	22
5	Least Sandpiper	3	4	8	27	7	14
5	Western Sandpiper	2					16
5	Spotted Sandpiper	1			1	1	1
5	Willet	5	3	51	20	15	8
5	Greater Yellowlegs	1
6	Heermann’s Gull	24	79	29	2	7	1
6	Ring-billed Gull	2	12	15	19	12	12
6	Western Gull	55	27	65	35	90	55
6	California Gull	75	440	525	60	575	105
6	American Herring Gull			1	1	1	2
6	Glaucous-winged Gull						3
6	Caspian Tern	1
6	Royal Tern	5	6		2		5
2	Red-throated Loon						1
2	Pacific Loon					1
2	Common Loon		2				4
2	Brandt’s Cormorant		2	5		7	1
2	Pelagic Cormorant		2	2			2
2	Double-crested Cormorant	54	51	44	23	55	25
2	Brown Pelican	24	30	260	35	23	29
3	Snowy Egret	4	10	5	5	5	6
3	Black-crowned Night-Heron	1	1	1	2
3	Green Heron	2	1	1
3	Great Egret	2	3	3	1	1	2
3	Great Blue Heron	2	5	4	4	1
3	White-faced Ibis	3
4	Turkey Vulture	7		1
4	Osprey		1	1	1		2
4	Cooper’s Hawk						1
4	Bald Eagle						1
4	Red-shouldered Hawk	1
4	Red-tailed Hawk	2	1		1		1
8	Belted Kingfisher	1	1	1	1		1
8	Nuttall’s Woodpecker	1					1
4	American Kestrel		1
8	Nanday Parakeet	25			4		4
9	Cassin’s Kingbird		1
9	Black Phoebe	2	4	6	1	1	3
9	Say’s Phoebe	1	1	1			1
9	Loggerhead Shrike		1
9	California Scrub-Jay	2				1
9	American Crow	8	6	22	8	9	26
9	Common Raven		4	1			2
9	Tree Swallow	1		12
9	Barn Swallow	1			1
9	Bushtit	20	30	12	50	4	5
9	Wrentit	4	1		2	1	1
9	Ruby-crowned Kinglet	1	1	3		1	1
9	Blue-gray Gnatcatcher	4		1			1
9	Bewick’s Wren	2	2	2	1	1
9	Northern House Wren	3	6	1
9	Marsh Wren	2	1
9	Northern Mockingbird		1	1	1		1
9	European Starling	10	12		7		1
9	Western Bluebird		5				1
9	Hermit Thrush			1
9	House Finch	4	8	4	6	8	9
9	Lesser Goldfinch	3		6	2		10
9	Lark Sparrow	1
9	Dark-eyed Junco	2	1	2			1
9	White-crowned Sparrow		16	15	20	8	7
9	Savannah Sparrow	1
9	Song Sparrow	10	5	8	6	12	8
9	California Towhee		3	2		2	3
9	Spotted Towhee			1
9	Western Meadowlark	15			1
9	Red-winged Blackbird	11		1	2
9	Great-tailed Grackle	1	4	15	22
9	Orange-crowned Warbler	2	1	2		1	1
9	Common Yellowthroat	5	7	8	6	2	2
9	Yellow Warbler	1
9	Yellow-rumped Warbler		15	15	14	6	8
9	Townsend’s Warbler	2
	Totals Birds by Type	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb
1	Waterfowl	43	112	93	157	196	78
2	Water Birds – Other	155	469	882	769	922	144
3	Herons, Egrets & Ibis	14	20	14	12	7	8
4	Quail & Raptors	10	3	2	2	0	5
5	Shorebirds	142	197	404	290	92	86
6	Gulls & Terns	162	564	635	119	685	183
7	Doves	2	5	4	0	6	5
8	Other Non-Passerines	31	5	3	8	1	14
9	Passerines	119	136	142	150	57	92
	Totals Birds by Type	678	1511	2179	1507	1966	615
	Total Species by Group	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb
1	Waterfowl	4	6	8	8	8	8
2	Water Birds – Other	4	9	8	5	8	9
3	Herons, Egrets & Ibis	6	5	5	4	3	2
4	Quail & Raptors	3	3	2	2	0	4
5	Shorebirds	12	8	10	11	10	10
6	Gulls & Terns	6	5	5	6	5	7
7	Doves	2	2	1	0	1	1
8	Other Non-Passerines	4	3	3	3	1	5
9	Passerines	27	24	24	17	14	20
	Totals Species by Group	68	65	66	56	50	66