Burrowing Owl, Dockweiler Beach, December 2015
What is a 5MR?
“5MR” stands for Five-Mile Radius. A 5MR is a circle that extends five miles in every direction from your living room couch. It’s like a CBC circle, but smaller and personal to you. The 5MR is the new way to bird, replacing the obscenity of non-Kenn Kaufman ABA-area big years, and hopefully shrinking the number of people pursuing never-ending county big years (especially in gigantic counties like mine). It reduces the time spent driving around creation in a gas-burning car, making it environmentally friendly (which the birds appreciate). It gets you away from the same old hotspots, and more familiar with your local area, birding parks and spots that you (and the rest of us) otherwise never visit, and finding great birds that otherwise are never found. And you learn more about, and document, distribution and migration patterns and nesting going on right near you, which is much more valuable than dozens of reports of the same annual vagrant at a regularly-birded hotspot.I went all-in in 2018, did a 5MR Big Year, and I was changed forever. I discovered spots 5 minutes from my house full of birds, found some great birds I used to drive an hour or more to go see (a Mountain Plover at the beach!), and learned a ton about bird life.
I can’t encourage 5MR birding enough. For more information from the originator of the 5MR, Jen Sanford, click here.
My Culver City 5MR
My enthusiasm for 5MR birding undoubtedly springs from the wonderfully diverse habitat I happen to have in my 5MR. Within a five-mile radius of my living room couch, I’ve got some scrubby hills, lots of parks with trees, a whole bunch of cemeteries, a big freshwater marsh, a mile-long bushy riparian area, a lush university campus, a creek that spills into the ocean, sand dunes, beach, rock jetties, a marina, and enough ocean to get some pelagic species.
- House Sparrow (2012)
- Allen’s Hummingbird
- American Coot
- Great Blue Heron
- Great Egret
- Green Heron
- White-tailed Kite
- Red-tailed Hawk
- Snowy Egret
- American Kestrel
- Mallard (2013)
- Rock Pigeon
- Black-necked Stilt
- American Wigeon
- Marbled Godwit
- Willet
- Ring-billed Gull
- California Gull
- Brown Pelican
- American Crow
- Mourning Dove
- House Finch
- Lesser Goldfinch
- Anna’s Hummingbird
- White-crowned Sparrow
- Western Grebe
- Sanderling
- Northern Harrier
- Say’s Phoebe
- California Scrub-Jay
- Cinnamon Teal
- Gadwall
- Red-breasted Merganser
- Red-winged Blackbird
- Common Yellowthroat
- Yellow-rumped Warbler
- Bufflehead
- Royal Tern
- Double-crested Cormorant
- Tree Swallow
- Ruby-crowned Kinglet
- Canada Goose
- Short-eared Owl
- Greater Yellowlegs
- Northern Rough-winged Swallow
- Barn Swallow
- Black-crowned Night-Heron
- American Robin
- Brewer’s Blackbird
- Mandarin Duck*
- Western Gull
- Northern Mockingbird
- Western Kingbird
- Warbling Vireo
- Western Bluebird
- Cedar Waxwing
- Brown-headed Cowbird
- Killdeer
- Caspian Tern
- Whimbrel
- Elegant Tern
- Mitred Parakeet
- Ruddy Duck
- Pied-billed Grebe
- European Starling
- Great-tailed Grackle
- Surf Scoter
- Heermann’s Gull
- Common Gallinule
- Black Phoebe
- Bushtit
- Eurasian Collared-Dove
- Song Sparrow
- California Towhee
- Barn Owl
- Ruddy Turnstone
- Western Sandpiper
- Black Oystercatcher
- Black-bellied Plover
- Semipalmated Plover
- Dark-eyed Junco
- Lazuli Bunting
- Osprey
- Ash-throated Flycatcher
- Cooper’s Hawk
- Black Turnstone
- Surfbird
- Least Sandpiper
- Wandering Tattler
- Brandt’s Cormorant
- Orange-crowned Warbler
- Northern Shoveler
- Forster’s Tern
- Belted Kingfisher
- Short-billed Dowitcher
- Sora
- Green-winged Teal
- Spotted Sandpiper
- Blue-footed Booby
- Wilson’s Warbler
- Blue-winged Teal
- Eared Grebe
- Bald Eagle
- Cassin’s Kingbird
- Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
- Dunlin
- Spotted Towhee
- Western Meadowlark
- Vaux’s Swift
- Northern Flicker
- Fox Sparrow
- Wilson’s Snipe
- Western Flycatcher (Pacific-slope)
- Hermit Thrush
- American Avocet
- Nuttall’s Woodpecker
- House Wren
- Red-breasted Sapsucker
- Rose-ringed Parakeet
- Northern Red Bishop
- Townsend’s Warbler
- Bonaparte’s Gull
- Lesser Scaup
- Horned Grebe
- Common Loon
- Ring-necked Duck
- Ferruginous Hawk
- Black-legged Kittiwake
- Black-throated Gray Warbler
- Black-throated Green Warbler
- Burrowing Owl
- Red-naped Sapsucker
- Bewick’s Wren
- Common Raven (2014)
- Hooded Merganser
- Long-billed Dowitcher
- Snowy Plover
- Pacific Loon
- Palm Warbler
- Red-shouldered Hawk
- Downy Woofpecker
- Golden-crowned Sparrow
- Lincoln’s Sparrow
- Black-and-white Warbler
- Common Goldeneye
- Glaucous-winged Gull
- Mew Gull
- Redhead
- Long-tailed Duck
- Savannah Sparrow
- American Pipit
- Yellow-chevroned Parakeet
- Marsh Wren
- Hooded Oriole
- Red-masked Parakeet
- White-throated Swift
- Bullock’s Oriole
- White-faced Ibis
- Virginia Rail
- Black-headed Grosbeak
- Least Bittern
- Red-necked Phalarope
- Chipping Sparrow
- Nashville Warbler
- Hutton’s Vireo
- Yellow Warbler
- Cliff Swallow
- Turkey Vulture
- Western Tanager
- Swainson’s Thrush
- Brant
- Hermit Warbler
- Cockatiel*
- Least Tern
- Western Wood-Pewee
- MacGillivray’s Warbler
- Black Skimmer
- Wilson’s Phalarope
- American Goldfinch
- Acorn Woodpecker
- Pelagic Cormorant
- White-winged Scoter
- Tricolored Blackbird
- Red-throated Loon
- American White Pelican
- American Bittern
- Worm-eating Warbler
- Peregrine Falcon
- Merlin
- Ancient Murrelet
- Black-vented Shearwater (2015)
- Lawrence’s Goldfinch
- Lark Sparrow
- Herring Gull
- Clark’s Grebe
- Greater Scaup
- Black Scoter
- Plumbeous Vireo
- Band-tailed Pigeon
- California Thrasher
- Northern Pintail
- Long-billed Curlew
- Black-chinned Hummingbird
- Rufous Hummingbird
- Great Horned Owl
- Yellow-headed Blackbird
- Olive-sided Flycatcher
- Yellow-breasted Chat
- Willow Flycatcher
- Yellow-crowned Night-Heron
- Egyptian Goose
- Red Knot
- Loggerhead Shrike
- Red-breasted Nuthatch
- Mountain Chickadee
- Snow Goose
- Summer Tanager
- Painted Redstart
- Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
- Ross’s Goose (2016)
- Greater White-fronted Goose
- Iceland Gull
- Bell’s Vireo
- Ridgway’s Rail
- Sabine’s Gull
- Pectoral Sandpiper
- Lilac-crowned Parrot
- Chestnut-sided Warbler
- Swamp Sparrow
- White-throated Sparrow
- Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
- Eurasian Wigeon (2017)
- White-eyed Vireo
- Oak Titmouse
- American Redstart
- Island Canary*
- Tennessee Warbler
- Northern Parula
- Blackpoll Warbler
- Bar-tailed Godwit
- Vesper Sparrow
- Sharp-shinned Hawk
- Pacific Golden-Plover
- Dusky-capped Flycatcher
- Phainopepla (2018)
- Sage Thrasher
- Parasitic Jaeger
- Nanday Parakeet
- Clay-colored Sparrow
- Cackling Goose
- Purple Finch
- Orchard Oriole
- Violet-green Swallow
- Helmeted Guineafowl*
- Cassin’s Vireo
- Blue Grosbeak
- Costa’s Hummingbird
- Bank Swallow
- Scaly-breasted Munia
- Fulvous Whistling-Duck
- Rufous-crowned Sparrow
- Baird’s Sandpiper
- Solitary Sandpiper
- White-breasted Nuthatch
- White-winged Dove
- Brewer’s Sparrow
- Wood Duck
- Mountain Plover
- Rock Wren
- American Oystercatcher (2019)
- Swinhoe’s White-eye
- Gray Flycatcher
- Lesser Yellowlegs
- Yellow-crowned Bishop*
- Pin-tailed Whydah
- Golden-crowned Kinglet
- Vermilion Flycatcher
- Masked Booby (2020)
- Green-tailed Towhee
- Indian Peafowl*
- Red Phalarope
- Budgerigar*
- Semipalmated Sandpiper
- Hooded Warbler
- Pine Siskin
- Red-necked Grebe
- California Gnatcatcher (2021)
- Swainson’s Hawk
- Tropical Kingbird
- Canvasback
- Neotropic Cormorant
- Western Cattle Egret
- Purple Martin
- Red-lored Parrot
- Red-whiskered Bulbul
- Northern Cardinal
- Common Merganser (2022)
- Cape May Warbler
- Northern Fulmar
- Hammond’s Flycatcher
- Common Tern
- Pigeon Guillemot
- Grasshopper Sparrow
- Baltimore Oriole
- Townsend’s Solitaire (2023)
- Great Crested Flycatcher
- Brown Creeper
- Common Murre (2024)