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Vernal Poolish Madrona Marsh: 11 February 2023
[Chuck Almdale & Jean Garrett ]
Although many of our members regularly visit Madrona Marsh Preserve in nearby Torrance, the last time we were there as a group was in December, 2016, way way back in the Before Times. It was nice to see it again with so much vegetation. As our visit was brilliantly **timed months in advance to fall between a gigantic atmospheric river and the winter-storm-of-the-century-so-far, we saw lots of water and ducks, but had a fine, dry day in the field. The numerous paths are crushed granite (or something similar) and are raised an inch or so, so none of us got wet or vanished into a sinkhole.
**Note: Patent-pending on our field trip prediction process, so don’t bother asking.
Northern (Red-shafted) Flickers in the brush were among the first birds we found. One of us glimpsed a possible Yellow-shafted which quickly fled. (C. Tosdevin 2-11-23)
That said, Madrona Marsh, located a few miles south of I-405 and a mile west of Crenshaw Blvd., is a great spot to know about and visit. It regularly hosts odd birds attracted to this restored coastal scrub oasis amid the malls and housing tracts of South Bay. The rains of Winter and Spring, if and when they occur, fill vernal pool basins and dragonflies and waterfowl proliferate. Before this area was domesticated by millions of people, it was part of an extensive coastal terrace lying just inland of the coastal dune system. There were innumerable potholes, cienegas and vernal pools, and early settlers reported winter waterfowl numbering into the millions. That’s hard to imagine today. Madrona Marsh is a small remnant of this vanished habitat which the Tongva people enjoyed for millennia.
We notified them ahead of time and a volunteer opened the gate for us at 8 AM, an hour or two before their normal opening time. We followed a trail to the northeast to the currently very large vernal pool.
There was a nice variety of waterfowl, many of them apparently already in pairs.
We looked for but didn’t find any Soras or other rails skulking in the reeds. Other birds hung out around the fringes of the pools.
We left the pools and wandered to the west. In the grassy fields around us were quite a few Western Meadowlarks, (see photo at top) singing for all they were worth. Frequently these birds are seen from afar across a field, their vocals muted by distance, but these were nearly at our feet. And they were sweetly melodious, yet piercingly loud.
Cassin’s Kingbirds were flycatching from grass stalks and twigs. While Western Kingbirds typically fly farther south for the winter, Cassin’s often stick around in small numbers. We had both Anna’s and Allen’s Hummingbirds scattered around the fields and pathsides, sitting on twig-ends.
A few of us had heard Cedar Waxwings overhead but couldn’t see them. It is often said that when you begin to lose your hearing, the song of this species is the first to go. I don’t know if that’s absolutely true, but I can attest to the fact that I haven’t heard them in about 20 years. However, I did spot two flocks fly by overhead (hint: they’re always in a flock of 10-100 birds) before I spotted one come low and fly into a tree, where they stayed for quite a while.
A female (brown back) kestrel landed in a nearby tree, but didn’t try to make any moves on the waxwings.
After watching the waxwings for a while — they’re a treat to see and we don’t see them every year — we wandered over to the “sump.” This area is fenced in to keep people — who may be wandering around and not watching where they’re walking because they’re fixated on looking at some bird — from falling down the sides. It’s a deep hole perhaps 75 yds. across, maybe farther, originally dug to drain water out of the surrounding marsh. This water eventually runs through a pipe and out to the ocean, but creates a small pond in the meantime. Some birds appreciate its privacy and shade, including a half-dozen Hooded Mergansers, like the snoozing male below. We also found a Green Heron that was actually green, unlike most of them, lurking in the pondside brush.
There were a lot of sparrows, which I haven’t mentioned until now. Most of them were White-crowned, as are the two below.
(Left: Ray Juncosa; Right: Chris Tosdevin 2-11-23)
Lighting, shading, angle, posture, distance, surrounding foliage: all can play tricks on you. I missed the Golden-crowned Sparrow which some of the group saw in a bush or low tree. This species is similar to the White-crowned but is much less common in SoCal, where White-crowned Sparrows can be abundant in proper habitat in the winter. When I saw the above right hand photo of the immature (almost a year-old) White-crowned, I thought for a while it was a Golden-crowned as it seemed so brown rather than gray. But the plumage — mostly of the head as you can’t see the back — wasn’t right for Golden-crowned. Yet the bill, especially the upper mandible, seemed too dark for White-crowned, which has a pinkish-yellow bill. Then again, young White-crowns can have a bit of dark on the upper mandible. Checking my NGS field guide, I wondered if the right-hand bird might not be in the subspecies Z.l.oriantha; this subspecies breeds from SE British Colombia to the Owens Valley of eastern Calif. and to north-central New Mexico, but winter in northern Mexico rather than coastal California. The upper mandible of the pictured bird seems a bit reddish, as are the bills of ss. oriantha, so I wonder if one didn’t wander off course and head SW from the Owens Valley instead of SE.
Then again, it could just be a trick of the light.
As always, many thanks to our photographers: Ray Juncosa and Chris Tosdevin.
| Madrona Marsh Trip List | 12/10/16 | 2/11/23 |
| Canada Goose | X | |
| Cinnamon Teal | X | |
| Northern Shoveler | X | |
| Gadwall | X | |
| American Wigeon | 6 | X |
| Mallard | 6 | X |
| Green-winged Teal | X | |
| Ring-necked Duck | 1 | |
| Hooded Merganser | X | |
| Rock Pigeon | 8 | X |
| Eurasian Collared-Dove | X | |
| Mourning Dove | 50 | X |
| Anna’s Hummingbird | 3 | X |
| Allen’s Hummingbird | 9 | X |
| American Coot | 5 | X |
| Killdeer | X | |
| Greater Yellowlegs | X | |
| Ring-billed Gull | 2 | |
| Western Gull | 4 | |
| California Gull | 2 | X |
| Green Heron | X | |
| Black-crowned Night-Heron | X | |
| Sharp-shinned Hawk | 1 | |
| Red-shouldered Hawk | 1 | |
| Red-tailed Hawk | 2 | X |
| Downy Woodpecker | 1 | |
| Northern Flicker | 2 | X |
| American Kestrel | 3 | X |
| Ash-throated Flycatcher | 1 | |
| Cassin’s Kingbird | 6 | X |
| Black Phoebe | 6 | X |
| Say’s Phoebe | 1 | X |
| American Crow | 4 | X |
| Common Raven | 2 | X |
| Bushtit | 50 | X |
| Ruby-crowned Kinglet | 12 | |
| Cedar Waxwing | 20 | X |
| Blue-gray Gnatcatcher | 13 | X |
| House Wren | 1 Heard | |
| European Starling | 8 | X |
| Hermit Thrush | 1 Heard | |
| Scaly-breasted Munia | 45 | |
| House Finch | 20 | X |
| Lesser Goldfinch | 3 | X |
| American Goldfinch | 45 | X |
| Chipping Sparrow | 6 | |
| Brewer’s Sparrow | 2 | |
| Fox Sparrow | 1 | |
| White-crowned Sparrow | 60 | X |
| Golden-crowned Sparrow | 2 | X |
| Savannah Sparrow | 4 | X |
| Song Sparrow | 2 | X |
| Lincoln’s Sparrow | 3 | X |
| California Towhee | 2 | X |
| Western Meadowlark | 10 | X |
| Red-winged Blackbird | 2 | X |
| Great-tailed Grackle | X | |
| Black-and-White Warbler | 1 | |
| Orange-crowned Warbler | 6 | X |
| Common Yellowthroat | 3 | |
| Yellow-rumped Warbler | 10 | X |
| Black-throated Gray Warbler | 1 | X |
| Townsend’s Warbler | 1 | |
| Total Species – 63 | 51 | 46 |
Emperor Penguins Relegated to Pygmy Status
Fascinating article on prehistoric penguins that were bigger than Shaquille O’Neal.
https://phys.org/news/2023-02-fossil-bones-largest-penguin-unearthed.html
The recording of this program is now available.
[Posted by Chuck Almdale]
|
Evolution in Urban Dark-eyed Juncos, with Dr. Pamela Yeh, Ellie Diamant, Mars Walters, Sam Bressler & Wilmer Amaya-Mejia.
The Yeh Lab is excited to be giving a talk on evolution in urban dark-eyed juncos. Pamela Yeh, Associate Professor at UCLA, will start by discussing some of the history of the lab’s work on the juncos and providing an overview of the work being done in her lab. PhD Candidate Ellie Diamant will discuss her work on urban junco fear. Recent MS graduate Mars Walters will then talk about juncos and aggression during the pandemic. Recent MS graduate Sam Bressler will next talk about phenotypic plasticity and nest placement in the junco. Finally, PhD student Wilmer Amaya-Mejia will discuss some of his current work in-progress with juncos and their parasites.
Dr. Pamela Yeh is an Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UCLA. She studies how human activities affect the evolution of species, focusing on the evolution of birds in urban environments and the evolution of drug resistant bacteria in urban and agricultural areas. She received her PhD in Evolutionary Biology from UC San Diego and has conducted postdoctoral work in the Center for Genomics Research and the Systems Biology Department both at Harvard University
Atmospheric Rivers | Los Angeles Times
[Posted by Chuck Almdale]
If it seems to you that “atmospheric river” is a term you didn’t hear a decade ago, you’re right. It’s usage began around 2004 when scientists discovered that moisture was frequently carried in the atmosphere in long, relatively narrow ribbons. These ribbons can be 100-500 miles wide, 2,000 miles long, 10,000 feet above us, and contain more water than the Amazon River. They’re whats responsible for the short-term heavy heavy downpours the west coast has been battered by over the past month. As our atmosphere heats up due to climate change, we can expect more and probably larger such rivers, interspersed with — here it comes — periods of drought.
The Los Angeles Times publishes too few science articles, so when they do a good one, a trumpet should be blown.
From high above an atmospheric river, a deep dive for data:
Los Angeles Times | Ian James (somewhere over the north Pacific Ocean | 2 Feb 2023
Article contains a 5 1/2 minute video.
From the article:
The science of atmospheric rivers has come a long way since [meteorologist Marty] Ralph and his colleagues published a 2004 study drawing on data from satellites and reconnaissance flights. Since then, Ralph said, more than 500 articles have been published in scientific journals with titles focusing on atmospheric rivers.
The concept of atmospheric rivers began to emerge in the 1970s, when research in the U.K. showed tha a low-level jet stream ahead of a cold front was connected to heavy rains in Britain.
January High Tide, Malibu Lagoon, 22 January 2023
[By Chuck Almdale]
The highest tide of winter was 21 Jan., the day before our visit, when it peaked at 6.84 feet. On 22 Jan., the highest point was a whole 1/3rd (0.03 ft.) inch lower. The channels were very full with no sand or mud visible.
Two-and-a-half hours later the tide had dropped a couple of feet. Mud and sand were plentiful.
What little sand showed was on the other side of the outlet channel, where it was so crowded with birds that not all the cormorants could comfortably fit.
There was sand on our side, but there were also people, too many for birds to feel safe. Amongst the numerous Brown Pelicans (343) and Double-crested Cormorants (36) there were a lot of gulls. I counted over 1450 gulls— not including the ones that earlier flew away — in six species; 92% of them were California Gull. Here’s three of the other species, all of them large 4-year gulls,
We’ll start with the most frequent and reliable species, Western Gull. Many of them nest on nearby offshore islands such as Anacapa, where predation of nests by rats is low or absent. Their nesting range runs from the southern tip of Baja California to NW Washington. Present at the lagoon every month, averaging 75 birds/visit, but least abundant March-May during breeding season. They average 25″ long, wingspan 58″. It has a darker back than the other two species, its primary difference, but north of Monterey Ca. they have paler backs and darker eyes than southern birds. The wingtips are black with a few white “mirrors.” Both forms appear at the lagoon.
Far less numerous and more infrequent is our next species, Glaucous-winged Gull. Their nesting range runs from NW Oregon to NW Alaska, thus beginning just about where the Western’s breeding range ends. They’re slightly larger, averaging 26″ long, wingspan 58″. The back is a much paler gray, with same-gray wingtips with a few white “mirrors.” Most of those at the lagoon are 1st-winter birds like the bird below, no black anywhere, with an off-white waxy-looking plumage. “Glaucous” means waxy. We see them 44% as often as the Western, mostly January-April, but their numbers are only 1.6% of the Western’s, averaging 2.6 birds/visit. Just to additionally confuse the issue, Westerns and Glaucous-winged hybridize. As their barely-overlapping breeding ranges, similar appearance and ability to hybridize suggests, one might assume they are close relatives, probably (I think) with the darker Westerns splitting off from a paler Glaucous-winged ancestral population.
The third species is the Herring Gull, an abundant world-wide species with many forms, very common on the east coast where they frequent garbage dumps, but are regular in small numbers in SoCal. Same size as the Western at 25″ long, 58″ wingspan. The mantle is intermediate between Glaucous-winged and Western in darkness, with black wingtips and white “mirrors.” They breed in inland Alaska and northern Canada and along the Atlantic coast to South Carolina. Of these three species they’re the least common at the lagoon, appearing 22% as often as the Western and 0.8% as abundant, averaging 3 birds/visit. Most sighting are November-April, and they’re absent in July-August.
Adults of all three species have large yellow bills with a single red spot on the lower mandible, pink legs at most ages and varying amounts of head/neck streaking in the winter. As 4-year gulls, they all go through 7 plumage stages, very roughly every six months, with a mind-bogglingly huge and depressing amount of variability in molting times and colors. The Western and Herring have pale eyes, but the Glaucous-winged eyes are dark.
There! That information and these photos, plus an additional couple of decades of study and looking at actual living birds will put you solidly on the first few steps of being able to distinguish one gull from another. I know one or two people who are fairly good at doing this.
I think it was July 2022 that we first saw a Pelagic Cormorant sitting on this roof. There’s been at least one monthly since then, except September when Pelagic’s were absent. There’s a camera sticking out of the house side just to the right of these birds (see below), but out-of-frame. I like to think the birds are on “cormorant-cam.” This is good safe spot with a wide view for them when tide is high and they cannot sit on the offshore rocky reef, and they really don’t like going so far inland as the lagoon, which must be at least all of 25 feet from the ocean. Plus it’s out of the way of humans and dogs and screaming youngsters running up and down the beach waving their arms.
There were lots of other birds at the lagoon, not just gulls.
If you missed our prior “Moon News” blog, you missed this tide prediction chart below. [I love it’s combination of symmetry and asymmetry.] Look closely and see that Jan 21 had the highest & lowest tides of the winter.
The chart is interactive here: Tide table for period: 30 Dec 2022 to 28 Jan 2023.
Full Moon: 6 Jan 2023 6:09 PM High tide: 5.78 feet on both 5 Jan 7:38am, 6 Jan 8:11am
New Moon: 21 Jan 2023 12:53 PM High tide: 6.84 feet 21 Jan 8:11am
The new moon high tide was 16 days farther from perihelion than was full moon high tide, yet was more than a foot higher. Thus perigee + new moon outweighed perihelion + full moon.
Birds new for the Season: Canada Goose, Common Goldeneye, Herring Gull, Red-throated Loon, Nuttall’s Woodpecker, Common Raven, Marsh Wren, European Starling.
Throughout the fall and much of the winter, the 1st-year male bird has brownish edges to many of his black feathers.
Malibu Lagoon on eBird as of 1-27-23: 6566 lists, 317 species
Many thanks to photographers: Ray Juncosa, Grace Murayama, Chris Tosdevin
Upcoming SMBAS scheduled field trips:
Madrona Marsh, Sat. Feb 11, 8 am; Malibu Lagoon, Sun Feb. 26 8:30 am; Sepulveda Basin Sat. Mar. 11 8 am; Malibu Lagoon, Sun Mar 26 8:30 am. These and any other trips we announce for the foreseeable future will be dependent upon the expected status of the Covid/flu/etc. pandemic 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: The migrating birds of Bear Divide, with Ryan Terrill. Tuesday, 7 March 2023, 7:30 p.m.
The SMBAS 10 a.m. Parent’s & Kids Birdwalk may begin in April, reservations necessary.
(Chris Tosdevin 1-22-23)
Links: Unusual birds at Malibu Lagoon
9/23/02 Aerial photo of Malibu Lagoon
More recent aerial photo
Prior checklists:
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 Chris & Ruth Tosdevin, Ray Juncosa, Chris Lord and others for their contributions to this month’s checklist.
The species lists below is irregularly re-sequenced to agree with the California Bird Records Committee Official California Checklist, which was updated 4 Feb 2023. If part of the chart’s right side is hidden, there’s a slider button at the bottom.
[Chuck Almdale]
| Malibu Census 2022-23 | 8/28 | 9/25 | 10/23 | 11/27 | 12/25 | 1/22 | |
| Temperature | 72-79 | 72-79 | 61-73 | 54-62 | 65-72 | 49-57 | |
| Tide Lo/Hi Height | H+4.49 | H+5.01 | H+5.33 | H+6.04 | H+6.59 | H+6.81 | |
| Tide Time | 1102 | 0949 | 0839 | 1045 | 0950 | 0858 | |
| 1 | Canada Goose | 4 | |||||
| 1 | Gadwall | 22 | 26 | 18 | 8 | 16 | 26 |
| 1 | American Wigeon | 14 | 8 | ||||
| 1 | Mallard | 65 | 28 | 12 | 16 | 6 | 20 |
| 1 | Northern Pintail | 1 | |||||
| 1 | Green-winged Teal | 2 | 6 | 38 | 15 | ||
| 1 | Lesser Scaup | 1 | |||||
| 1 | Surf Scoter | 12 | 3 | 1 | |||
| 1 | Bufflehead | 11 | 11 | 10 | |||
| 1 | Common Goldeneye | 2 | |||||
| 1 | Hooded Merganser | 5 | 1 | ||||
| 1 | Red-breasted Merganser | 25 | 7 | 6 | |||
| 1 | Ruddy Duck | 3 | 35 | 32 | 42 | ||
| 2 | Pied-billed Grebe | 4 | 6 | 8 | 4 | 5 | 2 |
| 2 | Horned Grebe | 1 | |||||
| 2 | Eared Grebe | 2 | 8 | 5 | |||
| 2 | Western Grebe | 2 | 4 | 1 | 8 | ||
| 7 | Feral Pigeon | 10 | 6 | 15 | 4 | 6 | 16 |
| 7 | Mourning Dove | 5 | 4 | 2 | |||
| 8 | Anna’s Hummingbird | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | ||
| 8 | Allen’s Hummingbird | 3 | 2 | 2 | |||
| 2 | Sora | 1 | 1 | ||||
| 2 | American Coot | 12 | 47 | 145 | 85 | 130 | 38 |
| 5 | Black-bellied Plover | 79 | 67 | 64 | 83 | 51 | 43 |
| 5 | Killdeer | 5 | 7 | 2 | 31 | 11 | 4 |
| 5 | Semipalmated Plover | 15 | 3 | 2 | |||
| 5 | Snowy Plover | 20 | 25 | 39 | 18 | 16 | |
| 5 | Whimbrel | 37 | 15 | 5 | 35 | 9 | 7 |
| 5 | Long-billed Curlew | 1 | |||||
| 5 | Marbled Godwit | 6 | 21 | 6 | 38 | 23 | 18 |
| 5 | Ruddy Turnstone | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 6 |
| 5 | Black Turnstone | 2 | |||||
| 5 | Sanderling | 25 | 14 | 33 | 45 | 27 | 35 |
| 5 | Dunlin | 1 | |||||
| 5 | Least Sandpiper | 10 | 23 | 15 | 62 | 19 | 22 |
| 5 | Western Sandpiper | 25 | 8 | 4 | 8 | 4 | |
| 5 | Short-billed Dowitcher | 2 | |||||
| 5 | Spotted Sandpiper | 1 | 1 | ||||
| 5 | Willet | 48 | 73 | 9 | 43 | 15 | 15 |
| 5 | Red-necked Phalarope | 1 | 2 | ||||
| 6 | Heermann’s Gull | 2 | 9 | 8 | 16 | 85 | 27 |
| 6 | Short-billed Gull | 1 | |||||
| 6 | Ring-billed Gull | 2 | 22 | 28 | 55 | 36 | |
| 6 | Western Gull | 53 | 72 | 64 | 105 | 68 | 49 |
| 6 | California Gull | 21 | 57 | 155 | 390 | 450 | 1330 |
| 6 | Herring Gull | 2 | |||||
| 6 | Glaucous-winged Gull | 3 | 7 | ||||
| 6 | Forster’s Tern | 1 | |||||
| 6 | Royal Tern | 6 | 1 | 12 | 3 | 2 | |
| 6 | Elegant Tern | 255 | 15 | ||||
| 6 | Black Skimmer | 3 | |||||
| 2 | Red-throated Loon | 1 | |||||
| 2 | Common Loon | 1 | |||||
| 2 | Black-vented Shearwater | 100 | |||||
| 2 | Pelagic Cormorant | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 6 | |
| 2 | Double-crested Cormorant | 68 | 56 | 51 | 45 | 62 | 36 |
| 2 | Brown Pelican | 112 | 64 | 65 | 220 | 158 | 343 |
| 3 | Great Blue Heron | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 2 |
| 3 | Great Egret | 3 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 2 |
| 3 | Snowy Egret | 14 | 9 | 9 | 31 | 35 | 16 |
| 3 | Green Heron | 1 | |||||
| 3 | Black-crowned Night-Heron | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||
| 4 | Yellow-crowned Night-Heron | 1 | |||||
| 4 | Turkey Vulture | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 4 | Red-shouldered Hawk | 1 | |||||
| 4 | Red-tailed Hawk | 3 | |||||
| 8 | Belted Kingfisher | 1 | 2 | 1 | |||
| 8 | Nuttall’s Woodpecker | 1 | |||||
| 4 | American Kestrel | 1 | |||||
| 4 | Merlin | 1 | |||||
| 4 | Peregrine Falcon | 1 | |||||
| 9 | Cassin’s Kingbird | 3 | 1 | 1 | |||
| 9 | Black Phoebe | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
| 9 | Say’s Phoebe | 1 | |||||
| 9 | California Scrub-Jay | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 9 | American Crow | 17 | 3 | 8 | 12 | 3 | 11 |
| 9 | Common Raven | 2 | |||||
| 9 | Oak Titmouse | 2 | |||||
| 9 | Violet-green Swallow | 1 | |||||
| 9 | Northern Rough-winged Swallow | 4 | |||||
| 9 | Barn Swallow | 28 | |||||
| 9 | Cliff Swallow | 1 | |||||
| 9 | Bushtit | 15 | 8 | 10 | 2 | 15 | 14 |
| 9 | Wrentit | 1 | 2 | 1 | |||
| 9 | Ruby-crowned Kinglet | 2 | 1 | 2 | |||
| 9 | Blue-gray Gnatcatcher | 2 | 1 | ||||
| 9 | House Wren | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | |
| 9 | Marsh Wren | 1 | 1 | ||||
| 9 | Bewick’s Wren | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||
| 9 | Northern Mockingbird | 1 | |||||
| 9 | European Starling | 8 | 6 | ||||
| 9 | Hermit Thrush | 3 | 1 | ||||
| 9 | House Finch | 8 | 4 | 15 | 18 | 16 | 9 |
| 9 | Lesser Goldfinch | 3 | 6 | 1 | 6 | 4 | |
| 9 | White-crowned Sparrow | 12 | 40 | 16 | 12 | ||
| 9 | Song Sparrow | 6 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 4 | |
| 9 | California Towhee | 1 | 3 | 6 | 1 | 3 | |
| 9 | Spotted Towhee | 1 | 1 | ||||
| 9 | Red-winged Blackbird | 25 | 4 | 3 | 8 | 12 | |
| 9 | Great-tailed Grackle | 4 | 5 | 1 | |||
| 9 | Orange-crowned Warbler | 1 | 2 | 1 | |||
| 9 | Common Yellowthroat | 4 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| 9 | Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon’s) | 4 | 16 | 15 | 6 | ||
| 9 | Townsend’s Warbler | 1 | |||||
| Totals by Type | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Jan | |
| 1 | Waterfowl | 87 | 57 | 68 | 125 | 136 | 85 |
| 2 | Water Birds – Other | 197 | 174 | 275 | 471 | 363 | 434 |
| 3 | Herons, Egrets & Ibis | 22 | 13 | 15 | 40 | 44 | 20 |
| 4 | Quail & Raptors | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 1 |
| 5 | Shorebirds | 281 | 263 | 183 | 367 | 161 | 166 |
| 6 | Gulls & Terns | 340 | 141 | 277 | 546 | 658 | 1453 |
| 7 | Doves | 15 | 6 | 19 | 6 | 6 | 16 |
| 8 | Other Non-Passerines | 3 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 5 |
| 9 | Passerines | 127 | 56 | 76 | 129 | 84 | 96 |
| Totals Birds | 1073 | 714 | 914 | 1690 | 1460 | 2276 | |
| Total Species | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Jan | |
| 1 | Waterfowl | 2 | 3 | 5 | 9 | 9 | 9 |
| 2 | Water Birds – Other | 5 | 5 | 8 | 9 | 8 | 7 |
| 3 | Herons, Egrets & Ibis | 5 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 |
| 4 | Quail & Raptors | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 |
| 5 | Shorebirds | 16 | 14 | 11 | 10 | 9 | 9 |
| 6 | Gulls & Terns | 6 | 5 | 7 | 7 | 4 | 7 |
| 7 | Doves | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 8 | Other Non-Passerines | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 4 |
| 9 | Passerines | 18 | 17 | 16 | 20 | 15 | 20 |
| Totals Species – 104 | 56 | 52 | 54 | 65 | 55 | 61 |
SANTA MONICA BAY AUDUBON SOCIETY BLOG 