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No salesman will call, at least not from us. Maybe from someone else.
Wanted: Proofreader
[Posted by Chuck Almdale, submitted by Ellen Vahan]
Submit application to editor.
Update: This was a joke. Look at the picture.
Red-necked Stint 2021: Oregon on 9-Aug, SoCal on 22-Aug
[Posted by Chuck Almdale]
One or more Red-necked Stints appeared on the west coast this fall. We have five photos of the single Oregon bird, taken 9-Aug-2021 at DeLaura Beach Access, Clatsop, OR, and twelve of the Malibu Lagoon, Malibu CA, taken on 22-Aug and 25-Aug, 2021. We don’t know if these are of the same bird, but they are a selection of those taken at both locations on three days.
Compare to the Malibu Lagoon bird 22-Aug-2021.
Back to the 9-Aug-2021 Oregon bird.
Compare to the Malibu Lagoon bird 22-Aug-2021.
Two more photos of the Oregon bird 9-Aug-2021.
The following photos of the Red-necked Stint are all of the single Southern California bird, taken 13 days later, on 22 Aug 2021. This was reportedly the 4th historical sighting of Red-necked Stint in Los Angeles County.
Red-necked Stint, approaching. Malibu Lagoon (Photo: Chris Tosdevin, 8-22-21, time: 10:01:11)
The following photos of the same Red-necked Stint were taken three days later, on 25-Aug-2021, at the same location, Malibu Lagoon, Los Angeles County, CA.
There you go. We report, you decide. I don’t know enough about plumage changes in shorebirds in general and Red-necked Stints in particular to make an informed judgement as to whether this is the same bird. Photography and lighting have a lot to do with how a bird can look. The first three Oregon photos appear to be taken in “golden light” of early morning or late afternoon, enhancing reddish colors. Same thing for many of the Malibu Lagoon photos.
Additional photos of the Oregon bird are here:
https://ebird.org/media/catalog?taxonCode=rensti&sort=rating_rank_desc&mediaType=p®ionCode=US-OR-007
Additional photos of the Malibu Lagoon bird are here:
https://smbasblog.com/2021/08/24/red-necked-stint-at-malibu-lagoon-8-22-21/
and
https://ebird.org/media/catalog?taxonCode=rensti&yr=YCUSTOM&mr=M8TO11&mediaType=p&sort=obs_date_asc&ey=2021&hotspot=Malibu%20Lagoon,%20Los%20Angeles,%20US-CA&hotspotCode=L597658&by=2021
49 Bird Bird Quiz | ABC
[Posted by Chuck Almdale]
I snipped the following from the 2020 Annual Report of American Bird Conservancy. They send me this every year because I send them money every year. It’s a worthy organization, deserving of your support, which in turn supports bird and bird habitat projects throughout the Americas, frequently through partnering with local organizations such as Fundación Jocotoco of Ecuador. Bird conservation projects received 69% of their expenditures in 2020, Education and Outreach another 4%, and they blew only 3% on fundraising. Charity Navigator gives them four stars, their highest rating. I think giving you this information is fair exchange for my borrowing their bird quiz, which I promise to return.
All 49 species are birds of the Americas, but I’ll give you an almost useless hint and tell you that over 10% of them are not found in the wild within the 50 U.S. states or Canada. Answers follow the two pages of birds. Reproduction by ‘snip’ is imperfect, but I think the photos are sufficiently clear for identification.
Link to ABC’s Bird of the Week: https://abcbirds.org/birds/bird-of-the-week/
No peeking!
Low tide down, High tide up: Repeat
[Posted by Chuck Almdale, photos by Ray Juncosa]
Here’s another offering in our never-ending effort to document tidal fluctuations in Malibu Lagoon. Future oceanographic historians will be enormously grateful, no doubt.
Ray commented on his photo shooting:
I was stopped by a couple who wondered if I came to the lagoon frequently – they could have sworn you could walk from the west lifeguard station all the way back past the Adamson House to Surfrider’s Beach and were surprised that they needed to do a u-turn.
Sometimes you can, sometime you can’t. Depends on the storms and tides.
Look below.
The ‘Winter Ramp – Summer Clock‘ sidewalk is inundated when water levels are high. This is intentional. There are tiles along part of the sidewalk showing the height above mean low low sea level.
The following set shows where Malibu flows out under Pacific Coast Highway. When the bridge was replaced several decades ago, due to very high flows and trees coming down the creek in an El Nino winter, the Cliff Swallows stopped nesting under it. They moved over to the brick or cement walls of the shopping and civic center buildings a few hundred yards away. The water is deepest just the other side of the bridge.
Pacific Coast Highway (Hwy #1) bridge and Malibu Lagoon as seen from near Malibu Colony.
The west end of the public part of Surfrider’s Beach begins here, where the Malibu Colony houses end. Cormorants, seals and shorebirds that prefer rocks to sand can be found here, but not at high tide.
The south channel looking back towards the Winter Ramp sidewalk, with Pepperdine University and Hughes Research Lab on the distant hills.
Looking east across the lagoon towards Adamson House on east side.
A regular denizen.
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.]
SANTA MONICA BAY AUDUBON SOCIETY BLOG 