san dieguito lagoon

the san dieguito lagoon is right next to where i work, which makes it a convenient place for me to go birding. i like to leave an hour or so early for my shift, stop by, and check out what's flown in. every now and then something interesting shows up. on mon. 11/23, i was able to stop by and find the LAPLAND LOGSPUR that was reported the previous sunday. this species is found in san diego (i've been told) about once a year, and usually out east of the mountains. i wonder what this bird was doing all the way out at the beach. anyway, it took about an hour of waiting and searching until he finally showed up beside a nearby puddle, with a group of HORNED LARKs, to get a drink. at first glance it was hard to pick the bird out of the flock. even from a short distance the two birds look pretty similar. however, further inspection revealed the target bird - with his wider and shorter bill, subtly different facial pattern, a blackish patch/smudge on its chest, and smaller overall size. despite all these differences, if i hadn't shown up expecting to see lapland longspur, (being the amateur that i am) i probably would overlooked this bird and moved on. this illustrated to me why it's a good idea to give a flock of common birds a good going over, and to really pay attention to anything that seems off. you never know what you might find.


another recent stop at the lagoon ( mon. 11/30) produced 4 BONAPARTE'S GULLs, mixed in with a large flock of other gulls that are usually present in the northwestern most portion of the lagoon. this was a really tricky i.d. for me, because the only optics i had to see the birds with (which were about 300 yards away) were my 10x binoculars. if i had a spotting scope, this is what i'd use it for. at first i noticed two really small gulls, about half the size of all the others, swimming around in the main body of the flock. i got them in my binos and sat and stared. i wrote down all i could see... a small gull with pinkish legs, an ear smudge, small head with black bill, etc.. and prayed for them to fly off. but, all they would do was walk around, or swim back and forth. then, a flock of CANADA GEESE came in and started circling, looking for a good spot to land, and spooked a few gulls - my heart started pounding in anticipation of their take off. i could barely keep my binoculars still, hoping that seeing them in flight would prove that i had found a rarity. finally, every bird in the flock lifted off and circled into the air. it was all i could do to find my birds again in the swirling cloud above. when i finally did, i furiously drew every detail of the wing and tail pattern i could. when the flock settled down and gradually began returning to the water, my four mystery gulls ended up landing a few hundred yards closer than before. from this distance i was able to get some really good looks at them and determine that they were definitely bonaparte's gulls - a not too uncommon bird that i had seen before. but, despite that, it was a much more exciting time than seeing the longspur, which didn't present an i.d. challenge at all. one of the most fulfilling aspects of birding is working hard to make a good i.d.