Tag: Pacific Golden-Plover (Page 1 of 2)

Birding Ballona Creek #2 – Lower Ballona Creek

Birding Lower Ballona Creek: Pacific Avenue to Lincoln Boulevard

This section of my guide to birding Ballona Creek covers the last mile-and-a-half of the creek before it reaches the jetties and breakwater, from Lincoln Blvd. to the Pacific Avenue bridge. There’s a single eBird hotspot for this section–Ballona Creek: Lower–where 223 species have been reported over the years.  The creek is tidal for this whole section, and tides can shift as much as 6 feet from high to low. At the lowest tides, there’s exposed mud in the middle of the creek where Culver Blvd. and Lincoln Blvd. cross it. For the rest of the creek in this section, low tide just exposes a little more rock along the edge of the creek. The bike path (in red in the map above) runs along the north side of the creek. A path along the south side, with a view of the salt pan, is not legally accessible.

This portion of the creek is pretty good for water birds and shorebirds. The water birds (ducks, loons, and grebes mainly) can be found any time of day, moving up and down the creek. Numbers are highest in the winter. Buffleheads dominate, with a smaller number of American Wigeon (who prefer the lagoon to the creek), Lesser Scaup, and Green-winged Teal (more likely the further up the creek you go) usually present all winter, too.  Pacific, Common, and Red-throated Loons will sometimes, usually singly, swim up and down the creek. Eared and Horned Grebes tend to stay downstream of the Pacific Avenue bridge. The Surf Scoters that mass in big numbers off Dockweiler Beach during winter will sometimes wander up the creek a bit. Brant are rare. Most winters a Common Goldeneye or two makes an appearance. Less frequently a Long-tailed Duck shows up. A few Red-necked Phalaropes are seen in fall migration (they prefer the section of the creek near Centinela Ave.), and a breeding-plumaged Red Phalarope hung out for a couple of days one May. Mallards and Gadwall hang around all-year long.

The best time for shorebirds in this section of the creek is either the morning, or low tide.  At high tide, especially if it’s a higher high tide, there aren’t that many roosting spots, and many birds head to the beach or, if there’s water, the salt pan. There are a few spots where the shorebirds are more likely to be found. One is about 50 yards west of the UCLA boat ramp, on the north side of the creek. This is a great spot for viewing because you’ve got point blank views of the birds, all huddled together. Their close proximity helps to make the rarities stick out more obviously. Another spot is just west of the bike path fork. There’s bigger bushes here, which often obscures the view. The best time of the year for shorebirds is during spring/fall migration, when the variety is highest, followed by winter. From May to June, the creek is mainly a ghost town.

Black-bellied Plovers and Willets roost in numbers, with often more than 100 of each. Marbled Godwit can be found year-round as well. Whimbrel pass through for migration, with a few staying all winter.  A Pacific Golden-Plover has been present for 4 winters running, and I hope it comes back in Fall 2022 for a 5th. While not reliably found on any given trip to the creek, each winter, Dunlin and Red Knot can often be found on the lower creek, 

Of course, a bunch of birds fly up and down the creek, as well, occasionally dive bombing to feed for fish. Osprey (August through April), Brown Pelicans (all year), and Elegant and Caspian Terns (summer) are frequent flyers. The tiny Least Terns are around from May to July, but some days you’ll see them, and others not. 

Flatlands surrounding the creek

There are some big flat fields on both the north and south side of the creek. The field north of the creek is known as Area A. It had been completely fenced off for years, but recently a short (and pretty unexciting) walking path was opened up in the western-most portion. You can enter from a parking lot along Fiji Way (across from Whiskey Red’s), or off the bike path. I’ve seen it called the Ballona Wetlands Trail or the Fiji Trail. It’s supposed open Wednesday-Saturday from 8am – 1pm. The path is a short square walk, and gives you some better views of  the field.

Ballona Area A carpeted with yellow flowers in May

If you’re on the bike path, you can often see birds along the fenceline. It’s rarely exciting stuff – house finches, song sparrows, savannah sparrows, and white-crowned sparrow mainly. Spring migration often brings a few Lazuli Buntings and a Blue Grosbeak or two. Out in the field, you’ll see Red-tailed Hawks all-year long. Last winter, a Harlan’s (Red-tailed) Hawk hung around for a month from December to January.  Once a separate species, it’s now considered a subspecies of Red-tailed Hawk. In the Lower 48, they’re usually in the Great Plains in winter. Other birds of prey working the fields include White-tailed Kite, Northern Harrier, Loggerhead Shrike (a carnivorous songbird, is that a bird of prey?), American Kestrel, and Barn Owls at night. Swallows work the field frequently, and you can occasionally see Bell’s Vireo, California Thrasher, and Western Meadowlark out there. The only two warblers you’re likely to see if this mostly tree-less area are Yellow-rumped Warbler in winter, and Common Yellowthroat. 

Harlan's Hawk Ballona Creek

Harlan’s (Red-tailed) Hawk

South of the creek is a flatland sometimes called the Salt Pan. Back when it used to rain in the these parts, there would be shallow pools out there for weeks. But now, thanks to the megadrouhgt, it’s mostly dry. When there’s water, the Black-bellied Plovers will hang out there, alongside Killdeer. It’s harder to get access to this area. Pre-pandemic, there were monthly service events in the area, to clear invasive plants like iceplant. Those are just getting started up again. Without access, it’s hard to spot the Burrowing Owl that often winter in this area. The path along the south side of the creek isn’t legally accessible. You can get distant, lawful views from the high ground at the end of 63rd Avenue in Playa del Rey behind the Del Rey Lagoon, or, more uncomfortably, by pulling off Culver Blvd.  I don’t know who manages the sluice gates, but I’d love to know why the area isn’t managed to allow intrusion of water more regularly. I imagine the migrating birds would love the stopover point. 

White-tailed Kite

Birding Glory: A Bar-tailed Godwit

This section of the creek is the site of my greatest ever birding find: a Bar-tailed Godwit in September 2017. On a bike ride one day, I stopped at a group of shorebirds along the north side of the creek between the UCLA boat ramp and the Pacific Avenue bridge. In the fall, the group is typically a mix of Black-bellied Plover, Willet, and Marbled Godwit. On this day, one of the 5 godwits in the group caught my attention. It had a very prominent white eyebrow that extended behind the eye. I watched it for a couple of minutes, and snapped some pictures (thank goodness). After a few minutes, it flew with the other godwits. The birds flew directly away from me, headed toward the ocean. I noticed that the mystery godwit’s rump patch appeared whiter, or at least contrasted a bit more with the back and end of tail, than the rump of the Marbled Godwits it flew away with. At the time, I didn’t know what it was. When I got home, I downloaded my pictures, and posted a message to the LA County birds listserv about a “Maybe Unusual Godwit” on the creek with my observations and a link to my photos. The experts quickly identified it as a Bar-tailed Godwit.

Bar-tailed Godwit Ballona Creek

A Bar-tailed Godwit very far off its migration course

Bar-tailed Godwits have an astounding migration. In the spring, they leave their wintering grounds in New Zealand and western Australia and fly north to the Yellow Sea in China, and from there disperse anywhere from Russia all the way to western Alaska. For those that head to Alaska, the return trip is unbelievable. These Bar-tailed Godwits double their weight in 2 weeks time, shrink their digestive organs, and enlarge their pectoral muscles, heart, and lungs. Then, they lift off for a 7,000 mile non-stop flight from western Alaska to New Zealand. The path takes them west of Hawai’i, so a Bar-tailed Godwit on the ground in Los Angeles is incredibly far off course. The journey takes eight or nine days, and is the longest known nonstop migration of any animal on earth.  It truly boggles the mind that a 1.5 pound creature can make this insane trip, much less do it every fall its entire life.

Despite lots of nerds looking that afternoon and the next day, the bird wasn’t seen again. Amazingly, of the 445,000+ eBird checklists ever submitted in L.A. County, only two report a Bar-tailed Godwit. There’s mine, and there’s one from 1976 (also in the lower Ballona Creek) from Kimball Garrett, the Michael Jordan of L.A. county birding (he’s seen 528 species in L.A. county alone!), together with a trio of similarly obscure birders named Jon Dunn, Guy McCaskie, and Van Remsen (an LSU ornithologist who was an author of the paper that reported seeing an Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Arkansas in 2004). 

While most days birding on the lower Ballona Creek are unlikely to produce a Bar-tailed Godwit, this is a great spot to get close-up views of a variety of species. 

One vision for the lower Ballona Creek

The future of this section of the creek is hotly contested right now. There are plans afoot to “restore” the lower creek to something that more resembles the original wetlands than the concrete bowling alley that the creek is today. Heal the Bay supports the plan depicted above. Environmental Impact Reports have been certified. Whatever shape it eventually takes (maybe 10-15 years from now), I hope there is more attention paid to providing attractive habitat for birds than there is now. This truly could be an amazing urban stopover site for migrating birds of all kinds, and breeding area for lost L.A. County breeders like Burrowing Owl and White-tailed Kite. A few extra walking paths would be nice as well, as long as they don’t come with large paved parking lots.

 

101-species day in the 5MR

Painted Bunting Inglewood California

This beautiful Painted Redstart has wintered in the very same tree for 3 straight years

An unplanned Big Day in the 5MR

The new year is a fresh start for birders. All the lists we’ve been keeping–year list, county year list, 5MR year list–reset to zero. And since the new year is usually a day off of work, many of us head out on January 1st to start the new lists. I did a little birding on January 1st. But the next day was the Los Angeles Christmas Bird Count (CBC). I live in the LA CBC circle, and my 5MR is within the LA CBC circle. I’ve often been out of town when the LA CBC happens (which is usually held on a Sunday around New Year’s day). But I was in town this year. And I was assigned by the amazing organizer, Dan Cooper, to bird some local parks. Up just after dawn,  I headed out to my assigned parks. By noon, I’d completed my rounds and was at 47 species. It was hardly an impressive list. But I did see Painted Redstart, Band-tailed Pigeon, and Western Tanager (though I struck out on a pair of Red-lored Parrots that have been hanging out in a nearby park for months). 

One benefit of having a CBC overlap with your 5MR is you get a bunch of good birders into your circle, and they find some good wintering birds. That certainly happened, with birders producing an impressive total of 185 species found in the count circle. Curiously, many of the top listers (from eBird) were nowhere to be seen in the LA CBC circle on count day. Maybe it’s because L.A. is so big (there are, I believe, at least 10 different CBCs that take place at least partly in L.A. county) and they’d participated in CBCs closer to home. It certainly wasn’t because they were out of town, because many of them were out birding L.A. on January 2nd.

Common Goldeneye Ballona Creek

A sharp-looking Common Goldeneye has been on the creek since Thanksgiving

But instead of birding the LA CBC circle, LA’s top listers were chasing Lucy’s Warblers at the Huntington Botanical Garden (outside the LA CBC circle), or Laughing Gulls at the Rio Hondo Spreading Grounds (outside the LA CBC circle) or Lesser Black-backed Gulls at Bonelli Park (outside the LA CBC circle) and Black-throated Green Warblers in Long Beach (outside the LA CBC circle) and Greater Pewees in the Pacific Palisades (outside the LA CBC circle) and American Redstarts in the Sepulveda Basin (outside the LA CBC circle). Those are cool birds for LA birders. But they were also birds the listers had seen in 2021. Some of them (like the Laughing Gull) were birds they’d seen the week before. And they were all known wintering birds that all were likely to be hanging around past Jan 2nd. In fact, if I’m right, not a single birder who saw 300 species or more in Los Angeles County last year went birding inside the LA CBC circle on count day. To each his own. And any birding is probably better than no birding. But it would’ve been great to have more folks participating in the wonderful tradition of the LA CBC.

After I was done with my assigned parks, I got the fancy idea that I could maybe make it to 100 species by the end of the day if I headed to the marsh and the beach, and got a little lucky. So I went to Playa del Rey, where I picked up some ducks (including Greater Scaup and Northern Pintail) at the lagoon, snagged a quartet of gulls at the beach, and a couple turnstones (Black and Ruddy) and some surfbirds at the jetty. Then I took a walk around the freshwater marsh, where I added more ducks (including Canvasback and Redhead), some white birds (American White Pelicans, White-tailed Kite, White-throated Swift) and a Belted Kingfisher, among other things. By this time, I was starving for lunch, and sitting at 91 species.

Pacific Golden-Plover Ballona Creek

This Pacific Golden-Plover, back for its 4th winter in my 5MR, brought my count to 99 species for the day

I went home, planning to fuel up and figure out what I needed to see to get to 100. But I was also tired, and fell asleep on the couch. When I woke at 3:30pm, I had a little over an hour of sunlight left. There was no time to plot out some stops. Instead, I headed to the creek and crossed my fingers.  At the 90 overpass, I added Greater Yellowlegs, Osprey, and Lincoln’s Sparrow.  Between the 90 and Lincoln, I added a Common Goldeneye, Long-billed Dowitcher, a Great Blue Heron, and Savannah Sparrow.  It was 4:30, the sun was getting close to the horizon, and I was at 98 species. But the creek wasn’t done yet. I kept walking west, and found the wintering Pacific Golden-Plover, along with a Herring Gull and a Glaucous-winged Gull. I was at 101 species for the day! I could’ve stuck around and probably snagged a Barn Owl, but my legs were tired from being out most of the day.   

101 species is not bad for an unplanned big day. If I was strategic about it, I think I’d have a chance at 150 species (Darren Dowell saw 140 species on the CBC count day, and he did all his birding, as far as I can tell, in my 5MR). Speeding around while ticking off species is not really my cup of tea–I’d rather enjoy a walk and see what I see. But it was a fun little experiment.

American White Pelican Ballona Creek

This yawning American White Pelican was unimpressed by my tally for the day

 

 

 

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