Always Bring Binoculars

5MR: 2024 Recap and 2025 Targets

January 18, 2025 / KDL / 0 Comments

Eastern Yellow Wagtail, Ballona Freshwater Marsh

2024 5MR Recap

It was a busy year work-wise. I didn’t do any travel outside the United States, and not much within it. That meant that I was around my 5MR most of the time. Put that together with a big year for vagrants in LA county, and I ended up with a 5MR record for species in a year. All told, I saw 235 species within a five mile radius of my living room couch. (If you had asked me before I became a birder how many species you can see within 5 miles of your house, I’d have said 30, 40, or maybe 50). I also added 8 new species to my 5MR life list, bringing it to 315. Two of them were on my 2024 targets list. Here’s the breakdown of the new additions.

Common Murre – I picked up my first 5MR lifer in February, when a Common Murre spent a couple of days swimming around the Marina del Rey breakwater. It’s an unusual bird to spot from land, but one I expected to eventually add to the list.
Virginia’s Warbler – In May, I brought my 5MR warbler list to 23 species when a Virginia’s Warbler showed up at Kenneth Hahn Park. This kicked off a run of 4 months with 4 new 5MR birds. Of my 8 new 5MR birds, this is the only one not found in the Ballona area. God bless the creek and marsh.
Little Blue Heron – This one was on my target list. I’ve tried many times before to turn a Snowy Egret into a Little Blue Heron. This one, with its yellowish legs and blue tipped primaries, did the trick.
Ruff – I kicked myself when word of a Ruff at the Ballona salt pan went out one afternoon. Just 30 minutes before it was spotted, I was on my bike at the Pacific Avenue bridge over the Ballona Creek. I paused, thought about checking the salt pan (5 minutes away), and decided not to. Just after arriving back at my house, I got the alert about this awesome shorebird at the salt pan. So I turned around and rode my bike right back to where I’d been. Cool to see one of these (only my second in LA County) with some of the breeding chest feathers (ruffs) hanging on.
Eastern Yellow Wagtail – This one goes down as the totally unexpected, mega sighting of the year. It’s just the third record ever for LA County. It was apparently spotted by someone else an hour before I saw it. But that person didn’t know what it was and hadn’t spread the word. So (maybe) this one counts as a bird I found.
Horned Lark – The second of my 2024 5MR targets that I saw. This Halloween sighting along the creek was followed up by a flock of 10 flying by me on the beach a few days later.
Indigo Bunting – This one was a bird-feeder special. There’s a little park next to an elementary school called Ballona Discovery Park. Friends of Ballona Wetlands do lots of good public educational work there. And they’ve got feeders that attract House Finches and Scaly-breasted Munia. In early December, an unexpected Indigo Bunting showed up. It was more brown than Indigo, but I was delighted to add it to my list.
Siberian Pipit – This bird wasn’t even its own species until October 2024. So it wasn’t a target. Indeed, whenever I’ve checked the pipit flocks in the past, it was in hopes of spying a Red-throated Pipit. But recently Siberian Pipit was split from American Pipit. And one December day while checking out the pipits at the little league ballfields along the creek, one stood out as not like the others. The chest and flanks were whiter and the streaks were thicker and darker. That made it a candidate for Siberian Pipit. I refound it 4 days later, and got the clinching photos of pink legs. Even accounting for old records of the bird as a japonicus subspecies of American Pipit, this is only LA County’s second Siberian Pipit.

Ruff

Siberian Pipit

Little Blue Heron

Indigo Bunting

The best ending to 2024 was a Christmas gift from my oldest child–a handmade piece of art representing my 5MR with some of my new additions sketched in pencil.

2025 5MR Targets

I knocked 2 of my targets off from last year’s list. And I’ve replaced 2 others that I didn’t see with some new ones. The first 5 remain species I’m convinced are due to be found. #10 is, as always, a wild dream

Rose-breasted Grosbeak – A regular enough vagrant in L.A. County that a park in my 5MR is bound to host one.
~~Lesser Black-backed Gull~~ – Increasingly spotted in L.A. County, but only once along the coast in my 5MR (2014). It’s past time for me to find one. UPDATE 1/20/2025: Before the month of January 2025 was up, gull guru Andy Birch spotted a first-cycle Lesser Black-backed Gull at Dockweiler Beach. A quick drive later I had added it to my list. Woo-hoo!
Chimney Swift – This one is all about ID skills. Each spring, the Vaux Swifts move through, and amongst them is surely a Chimney Swift or two. Do I have the patience to bird every bird and pick out the rarity?
Northern Waterthrush – There are several warblers I’d like to add to my 5MR list. My target is a Northern Waterthrush in the Playa Vista Riparian Corridor or at the Ballona Freshwater Marsh. The habitat is potentially good, especially in a wet year (if we ever have one of those again).
Painted Bunting – Finding one of the colorful male birds would be awesome. Last year may have been my chance, when they appeared in a few spots across the county. But I remain hopeful.
California Quail – New to my target list this year. Perhaps the terrible fires of early January in the Santa Monica mountains push some quail into unusual places this spring, like Kenneth Hahn or the Baldwin Hills stairs.
Wrentit – Another new target. Same thinking as with the quail. They are occasionally reported in my 5MR, but never with photos. Given the Wrentit’s fidelity to place, I’m dubious they are accurate reports.
Broad-winged Hawk – These raptors move through LA County in small numbers every year. You can even track their progress down the west coast and know when to expect them. One of these days, I’ll look up and see one.
Gray Catbird – Hiding somewhere in a brushy spot in my 5MR is a Gray Catbird that needs to meow when I’m within earshot.
Pileated Woodpecker – This would be absurd. But it would be fun. I can’t fathom where in my 5MR it would show up though.

Siberian Pipit in the 5MR!

December 25, 2024 / KDL / 0 Comments

Siberian Pipit wondering what it’s doing in Southern California

Siberian Pipit in Southern California

I take a lot of bike rides down the Ballona Creek. It’s just a block from my house, so it’s convenient. And it combines exercise and birding. My bike rides have led to some good finds, too (Bar-tailed Godwit, Mountain Plover, Pacific Golden-Plover, Semipalmated Sandpiper, Sabine’s Gull, Black-legged Kittiwake). Along the creek are some little league ballfields that attract meadowlarks, starlings, sparrows, and pipits in the winter. Whenever I pass, I give them a quick scan to see what’s around.

On a late afternoon bike ride a few days ago, I stopped to scan the ballfields. There were some pipits walking and bobbing. As I looked through them from the bike path, one immediately stood out. It had a really dark triangular malar, black streaking on the chest that formed a necklace, white underparts. The dark streaking extended to the flanks. This was obvious even from distance in poor light with my cheap binoculars. I immediately thought Siberian Pipit. Siberian Pipit was previously considered a subspecies of American Pipit. Recently, it was elevated to its own species. And there were only three previous LA County record in eBird — a single bird (probably) that appeared for 3 straight winters at soccer fields near Griffith Park.

The pipits flushed, but remarkably the darker-streaked bird and a couple other American Pipits stayed still. Tragically, I didn’t have my camera on me. So I hopped the bike-path fence to see if I could get a closer look. The pipits flushed away from me, but stayed in the same field. I took a cell phone picture through my binoculars. It a crappy shot, but it shows the dark malar and suggests the dark streaking. It was not gonna be good enough for an ID though.

My attempt at documentation with only a cell phone and binoculars

Luckily, a regular bird-watcher stopped when he saw me on the other side of the fence and my bike abandoned on the bike path. He had a Canon DSLR with him, and allowed me to snap some photos with it. The light was fading, and I didn’t want to wander with a guy’s camera for long. So I just took a few. He kindly shared the photos with me that night. They confirmed my observations. A dark triangular malar. Dark chest streaking that extended to the flanks. A white throat, chest, and flanks.

Dark Malar

Pinkish leg?

Dark streaking

Comparison shot

But the photos were distant. And they didn’t show the birds’ leg color (pink/red for Siberian Pipit, dark brown for American Pipit). Convinced this was likely a wintering bird, I went back to the fields 5 times over the ensuing days. There were 20-50 American Pipits there each time, but not the darkly-streaked bird. With all that time looking exclusively at American Pipits, I became convinced the bird was outside the spectrum of American Pipits. It was certainly well outside the spectrum of malar and streaking and throat/chest/flank ground color shown by the present American Pipits.

There was a big variety in the extent of streaking, and the darkness of the streaking, on the present American Pipits. Some had dark triangular patches at the malars (though the bulk of the birds did not). But at most, those malars were dark brown. And many were patchy dark triangles that had fuzzy edges. None showed a large black triangle with defined edges like this bird. Some had dark streaks that headed down the chest (though many of the birds did not). None showed a necklace formed by sharpie-thick black streaks headed down the chest like this bird. Some showed streaking that continued along the flanks (though most of the birds did not). But that flank streaking was brown and the streaks were short dashes. None showed extended black multi-level streaking at the flanks like this bird. Some had whiter throats and chests. But all of them showed creamy or buffy coloring somewhere on the sides of the chest and flanks, if not all over it. None had the uniformly white ground of this bird from throat to chest to flanks.

I changed my eBird entry to Siberian Pipit, where I assumed it would remain unconfirmed with better documentation.

A Christmas Return

After 5 visits without seeing the bird, I had basically given up hope that the Siberian Pipit was around. Nevertheless, on Christmas, after I trip to LMU to see a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, I stopped at the ballfields one last time hoping for Christmas magic. I didn’t see any pipits on the first 2 fields I checked. But the third field had some pipits moving around. In my first scan through the flock, one bird immediately jumped out. It had a big black malar, and sharpie-thick black streaking on the chest that extended down the belly and flanks. It’s throat, chest, belly and flanks had a uniformly white ground. The bird I suspected was a Siberian Pipit was back.

Pink legs!

Comparison

I knew I needed to get good looks at the legs. If this bird had pink or reddish-brown legs, that could confirm the Siberian Pipit ID. After spending 10 minutes in tall grass and clover, the bird wandered out into the open. Through my binoculars, the legs looked reddish. But leg color on a single bird can vary significantly depending on the angle of view and lighting. So I made sure to get photos from the front, side, and back. The lack of direct sunlight minimized the chance of deceptive lighting making the legs look reddish. In nearly all my photos, the legs look pinkish or reddish-brown.

I got word out that the Un-American Pipit was back. I shared a back-of-the-camera photo to the nerds on WhatsApp that showed pinkish legs. Happily, a couple birders headed right over. The flock hadn’t flushed, and they got better photos than mine.

I special thank you to Andy Birch, birder and artist extraordinaire. He’s incredibly helpful with tough IDs. His write-up and sketches of the difference between American Pipits and Siberian Pipits shows how tricky this ID can be. Glad he encouraged me to keep looking and get better documentation.