Boobies and Tits

A lot of non-birders find lots of bird names amusing, but I'm almost sure more jokes get made about the boobies and tits than any other species. We weren't above some tit humor ourselves on this trip, especially because it was well known that one of my target species was the blue-footed boobies that have been hanging out for several months not far from where we were staying. My travel companions were possibly also interested in hitting the California beaches to look at boobies, too. But I'm jumping ahead of myself a bit here - I've got to tell the story.

On the morning of November 7th we headed down to Playa Del Rey for a few hours of bird-watching. Our first stop was the Playa Del Rey lagoon, where a snowy egret (173) became my first year bird of the day.

Snowy egret at Playa del Rey Lagoon - with a Heermann's gull that wouldn't get out of the way for a clean shot

I was hoping for some night-herons here as well, but instead saw two other heron species: a great blue heron and a great egret.

Great egret at Playa del Rey Lagoon

Next we headed over to the beach, where I was eager to check out some of the terns that were flying around. Thankfully, Keith spotted a group sitting on the sand, which made identification of the two similar species much easier. The smaller elegant terns (174), with blood orange beaks and less black on their heads, were more numerous, but among them were about half a dozen royal terns (year bird #175, NA life bird #350). The royal terns, my first life bird in 2013, were larger, with more black on their heads, and carrot orange beaks.

Several elegant terns with a royal tern on Playa del Rey

As we headed for the breakwater, we encountered some more shorebirds, each species in small numbers but there was a nice variety.

Surfbird on the Playa del Rey breakwater

Willet on the Playa del Rey breakwater

I also found my first eared grebe (176) of the trip (and the year):

Eared grebe at the Playa del Rey breakwater

He/she wasn't far from a bunch of western grebes. There were western grebes all over the place down there - more about that in an upcoming blog post.

Pair of western grebes at the Playa del Rey breakwater

From the beach I thought I might be able to guess where a couple of the blue-footed boobies were on the offshore breakwater, but they were awfully far away. Luckily, right when I walked out on the first half of the breakwater connected to the shore, I met up with a pair of birders from Ontario, Canada who had scopes with them and were kind enough to share with me. There was no mistaking it now: I saw a blue-footed booby!!!! (Year bird 177, NA life bird 351). After no life birds all year, I got two in a span of about 15 minutes! I walked out a little further on the breakwater and scanned again, seeing five boobies in total. That's where I took this shot, just about the only one I got where one of the birds wasn't preening.

Blue-footed booby on the Playa del Rey breakwater

Later in the day, before heading out to attend an NHL hockey game at Staples Center, I went for a walk at Ballona Wetlands. In addition to seeing a peregrine falcon flyover while I was there, I also added one more year bird of the day: a black phoebe (178).

The next morning we decided to go for a hike at Temescal Canyon, a short distance north of Los Angeles. We hiked a three-mile loop that went up the canyon to a (mostly dried up) waterfall, then up onto one of the hills overlooking the coast.

Looking up Temescal Canyon towards the waterfall

The view looking north from the top of the hill at Temescal Canyon

This is where the tits came in. There were wrentits (179) everywhere! This is a species my dad and I longed to see for many years, looking for whenever we were on the Oregon or California coast. I finally added it to my lifelist in 2010 when a pair of wrentits unexpectedly showed up at the Sandy River Delta in the Columbia Gorge, but I haven't seen one since then. During our hike, I very conservatively estimated that I saw or heard about 20 wrentits! Dad, I know you haven't added this to your life list yet, so I have just the place for you: Temescal Canyon!

One of many wrentits in Temescal Canyon

I was hoping to see some titmice here, too, but only turned up a small flock of bushtits. It wasn't a terribly birdy place, but I did see a single California towhee (180) and two California thrashers (181).

Our next stop was a beach where I saw so many birds, I need to feature it in its own blog post!