A memorial service for a dear friend brought me to Los Angeles last week, and I took advantage of an opportunity to do some birding in the Golden State.
I flew from Newark Liberty airport to LAX on Wednesday, landing just after noon. My original plan was to drive to one of the beaches before checking into my cheapo motel in suburbran Alhambra. Instead, I went straight to the hotel and doubled back to Dodger Stadium to watch the Milwaukee Brewers defeat the LA Dodgers in Game Three of the National League Championship Series.
The next morning, I woke up early and headed to nearby Ernest E. Debs Regional Park in the Montecito Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. I’d seen e-Bird reports of many birds observed there and was also intrigued by reports of excellent views of downtown Los Angeles.
The park did not disappoint.
Fortified by an early breakfast at Winchell’s Donuts, I arrived at the park about 10 minutes before sunrise and was immediately greeted by several common ravens croaking their ownership of the territory.
The fun was only just beginning. I walked up a steep paved trail, keeping my eyes and ears open for birds I’d add to my life list. I’d revisit the park again Friday morning before heading back to LAX for my flight home.
What did I observe? For one, red-breasted nuthatches, relatively scarce in my home territory in New Jersey, vastly outnumbered white-breasted nuthatches. Yellow-rumped warblers were seemingly everywhere, although I had traveled without my camera and zoom lens. With only binoculars and my iPhone camera, I could not say for sure that I bagged the yellow-throat Audubon’s warbler subspecies.
One of my main hopes was to spot a red-shafted Northern flicker. I got one on the first visit, and then saw the red shafts fully the second day as one of them flew overhead. Also on that second day, I got a fleeting glimpse of a Nuttal’s woodpecker as it flew into a palm tree. Hoping for a spotted towhee, I struck out.
I did spot a wrentit, with its long tail, and California towhees. The Merlin app on both days offered repeated hits on bushtits, but I didn’t record them on e-Bird. Those birds are common enough in California that I felt I should see one before logging it.
On Friday morning, I spotted a Western bluebird on picnic table bench, then found a couple more foraging on the ground nearby.
All told, I added eight birds to my life list. They included a red-whiskered bulbil (fleeting glance), Bewick’s wren, mountain chickadee, a California scrub jay and a couple of black phoebes.
Suprisingly, I only encountered one other birder on the trails. He was waiting for a friend at the Audubon visitor’s center and gave me a few pointers on the trails on that side of the park.
He had just spotted an Allen’s hummingbird, which would elude me. But on the trail 20 minutes later, I spotted an Anna’s hummingbird helicoptering above the trees.
One other note: I spotted several dark-eyed juncos in the park, an odd sensation. Juncos are harbingers of winter in the East, and it was strange to see them in the 70-degree sunshine of Los Angeles.
All in all, it was a memorable trip. I only wish I had high-quality photos to share. 🦅