Same Ol' and Surprise Encounters

The last few days of our stay in California were spent birding familiar places. Birding areas that were close to where we used to live such as Veteran's Memorial County Park in Sylmar where we got some nice looks at the Chipping Sparrow and White-breasted Nuthatch.

Eaton Canyon in Pasadena was the place closest to home and despite harboring a great number of visiting Homo sapiens, was still birdy enough to produce California Quail, the always skulking Fox Sparrow, the winter resident Golden-crowned Sparrow and another winter visitor, albeit uncommon, the Pacific Slope Flycatcher.

Finally, Legg Lake in South El Monte, another park where humanity congregates, also had White Pelicans, Great Blue Herons and Ring-billed Gulls inhabiting its three lakes.

The surprise came after we had our lunch at Waba Grill. As we were driving out under a drizzle, I caught a glimpse of a small brown bird hawking for insects by the wire fence. I asked Kurt to stop and for the next half hour or so tried to photograph the skittish Say's Phoebe. As fitting finale, rain started to fall and a Common Raven dropped by and perched on the same fence where the Phoebe was and protested the cold downpour.

Full Frontal View

You are a birder and enjoy taking photographs of the birds you see. Now, what if every other bird you saw stood still in front of your camera and gave you a full frontal image. Add to that a look that seemed to say “How about this pose?” You’d probably say that it was just a fantasy or really extremely lucky.

Well it was luck for sure when that happened to me at Bonelli Regional Park last Wednesday. I went there primarily to add the Pacific Loon to my year list. Yes, I saw it and no, I wasn’t able to take a picture of it as it flew to places unknown as soon as I set up my gear.

After that initial setback, things began to turn around as bird species after bird species were quite obliging in having their photographs taken, including an unexpected sighting of a group of Lawrence’s Goldfinches (another sought after bird) just as I was about to leave.

American Robin:

California Towhee:

Western Bluebird:

Song Sparrow:

Lawrence's Goldfinch:

The Hills are alive...

One nice thing about Pasadena is that it is close to a variety of avian habitats – well if you consider an hour’s drive close. Anyway with the onset of spring, we thought it would be nice to head for the hills. Nestled amidst the San Gabriel Mountains about 30 miles east of us is Placerita Canyon. Not a lot of people go there, as it lies sort of off the beaten track. And that could be a good thing.

Of course, little did we know that there was a school outing there yesterday. Thankfully, they stayed at the ampitheater and we were able to explore the trails undisturbed. The highlight of our day came when we were at the picnic grounds where there were always a variety of birds to be seen. Dark-eyed Juncos were just about everywhere and the Western Bluebirds were constantly swooping down on some insect. I was taking some pictures of the Juncos when my wife almost nonchalantly said, “Look, a sparrow!”

Sparrows weren’t really that unusual here, White-crowneds and an ocassional Golden-crown were regulars. But when I looked at the object of my wife’s comment, I was speechless for quite a while. Cynthia, after a few minutes of waiting for me to identify the sparrow, finally asked, “Well, are you going to tell me what kind it is?”

“White-throated Sparrow!” I finally announced breathlessly.

White-throateds are very rare in California and to serendipitiously find one here can make one lose one’s speech faculties.

Per suggestion of the local docent, we proceeded to the Walker Ranch area where not far from the parking area, a hillside of yellow flowers were in full bloom. Here we saw our FOS Hooded Oriole.
Rufous Hummingbirds were competing with the Anna’s for prime feeding territory.

We saw a lot of birds that lovely Friday morning and it even seemed like the canyon was bursting in song. Even to this slightly hearing-impaired birder.