sat 12/5 - bust! - sort of

after hearing earlier in the week that a "super typhoon" was breaking up over the pacific ocean and heading our way, bringing massive amounts of rain and snow to the west coast, i decided to make a survey of some south bay areas that attract large numbers of water birds and see if anything interesting had been blown our way. it was my intention to figure out when storm related birds are more likely to arrive, relative to the storm system itself. it seems intuitive that they would come ahead of it, but i really don't have much experience with this subject, so i decided i'd bird ahead of, and behind the storm. my original plan was to get out and around on friday, (i don't usually like to bird on the weekends because many of the places i go to are too crowded) but certain obligations kept me from doing so. my route was this: hit the j street marina, the tijuana river slough ( someone reported a burrowing owl at the airfield there a few days prior), 7th street in imperial beach, and then a nameless mudflat alongside silver strand blvd that usually has a large number of birds within a good distance of the shore. i decided, however, that if i was to go on saturday, i'd skip the tj slough. besides the regular influx of people with the weekend off, i'd heard that there was going to be an audubon group there, and i didn't want to get caught up with them. i would come to regret that amendment, as i'll explain later.

saturday morning i woke up, packed a lunch, brewed a cup of coffee, and was at j street by 6:45 in the morning. upon exiting my truck i had hundreds of AMERICAN WIDGEONS, with NORTHERN PINTAILS, TEALS, BUFFLES HEADs, and BRANDTs mixed in. also, well over a thousand SURF SCOTERs were scattered in the areas beyond, all across the bay. amongst them, way out on the horizon somewhere, i'm sure were one or two BLACK SCOTERs. unfortunately, i was, as always, limited in my viewing capabilities by my lack of equipment (e.g. having only binoculars). as i made my way west along the board walk and out toward the center of the bay, i saw to my left what looked like a large, bulky, grebe. when i got the bird in my binos i saw that it was a loon - but which species (there are three common to sd) i was not sure. i opened my field guide to the first page and quickly narrowed it down to either a PACIFIC LOON, or a RED-THROATED LOON. the most prominent and immediately apparent feature of this bird was its upturned bill. the bill, its general plumage characteristics, and a small angular point on the back of it's head had me leaning heavily toward the red-throated. then, as i stood watching, the bird gave a stretch and worked its wings in a little start of the day warm up move, giving me a good look at its brownish throat patch. this was all i needed to make a positive i.d. and gain my 230th bird for the year: below.
















after a little more walking around, which produced nothing, i moved on to 7th street. there i had, beside the same BELTED KINGFISHER i saw on my last tour of the salt works, tens of AMERICAN AVOCETEs and BLACK-NECKED STILTS, 4 RED-BREASTED MERGANSERs, and 7 AMERICAN WHITE PELICANs. the area is pretty small, and easy to view quickly and thoroughly, so i moved on after only about twenty minutes. by the time i got to the unnamed mud flats on the silver strand the tide was too high for shore birds, and all i had were a few hundred BRANDTs.

i threw in a quick trip to carmel valley to check out some large swaths of cottonwood and willow, which were absolutely devoid of all but a large flock of BUSHTITs, and 2 WHITE-THROATED SWIFTs. afterward, i went home and collapsed, exhausted on the couch. i awoke to find out that a small group of MOUNTAIN PLOVERs, a bird that was last seen in san diego county in 1991, were spotted by the audubon group, along with a CACTUS WREN, and the BURROWING OWL i so badly wanted to see at the airfield at the tijuana slough. i guess missing out on some goods birds is what i get for being a crowd snob! my only consolation prize is that the area did contain some good birds at the time i had targeted it. although, whether it was because of the storm, i can't be sure.