Southern Wildlife Conservation (San Diego River) - 1

We've been driving by San Diego River hundreds of times but never stop.  When the River passes beneath Interstate 5, it enters the City of San Diego's Mission Bay Park. At this point, its meandering route to the Pacific Ocean takes it through the Southern Wildlife Preserve.

San Diego River is on the Pacific Flyway for migratory birds. The green line in the below image is Waterfowls Pacific Flyway.

We went there last Sunday and saw at least 500 birds at one time! Our eyes were just not enough to identify so many new birds!

What amazed me was on the two sides of river were highways and Interstate 5 just crosses the river. But still so many birds on the shores of the river. Animals seems really are not asking for too much.

Ruddy Duck

We never see Ruddy Duck in San Diego before. Ruddy Duck is pretty easy to identify. It has a very bright baby blue bill. And of course, the body is duck-shaped. Here it is with an American Coot.

    

                                    

American Wigeon

To identify American Wigeon,  the most easy way is to look if the male duck has white crown/forehead and a very bright shiny green speculum. It's very obvious no matter when they in flight or in rest.

                                  

Blue-winged Teal

You won't see blue-wings when blue-winged teals in rest. The big blocks of blue on their wings are only very obvious when they in flight.

Still not too hard to identify them though. The adult male has a greyish blue head with a white facial crescent, a light brown body with a white patch near the rear and a black tail.

                                    

If you see Cinnamon Teals, I seriously don't think you would miss them. Just like their name, their body is really cinnamon color! Their whole body is redish cinnamon with red eyes. Their color is much more red than brown. You will believe when you see it.

The photo below you can see the shape and color of a Cinnamon Teal and two Blue-winged Teals on flight. Now you can really see the light blue blocks on their wings. The first Blue-winged Teal is a male and the following is a remale. Look at the male got the white facial crescent but the female doesn't.

We also saw some Clark's Grebes. Grebes are freshwater diving birds. Grebes always look a little strange to me. They are unlike ducks, unlike any wading birds. and neck/head shape is almost like snake turtle head shape. Talking about behaviors, unlike ducks, they dive to fish instead just fish on surface. They dive in water for sometimes half a minute to fish.

In Southern California, Clark's Grebe and Western Grebe are common. The difference between these two are the bill shape and color. Clark's Grebe has red bill and a little bit upturn. Western Grebe has pale yellow and straight bill. So which Grebe it is on the below picture? Yes, Western Grebe.

Below are some photos that show the bigger view of the river.

See the little black dots in the photo below? They are all birds in rest. :) Very difficulte to tell which birds they are though under that kind of light and distance.

Look at the landing Great Egret! Isn't it beautiful?

 Southern Wildlife Preserve is also one of the areas for California Least Tern nesting. It's like a sandy flat area for California Least Terns to lay their eggs on it without people or cars accidentally step on them.

One of the surprises of that day was a California Brown Pelican got really close to us to dive and fish.

Batiquitos Lagoon, Carlsbad CA

Yesterday - Jan.16 we went to Batiquitos Lagoon. Batiquitos Lagoon is a costal wetland North of San Diego between cities of Carslbad and Encinitas. The lagoon consists 610 acres with surrounding area of 55,000 acres. 'batiquitos' in Spanish means 'watering hole'.

There is 1.5 mile trail along the north side of the lagoon. There are 180 species of birds that have been observed there. This is the 2nd time we've been there. But the first time since we began bird watching.

Here are some of the interesting ones we saw.

American White Pelican: We've seen California Brown pelicans a lot but this is the first time we saw white pelicans. The California brown pelican is the only pelican that plunge-dives. The white pelican hunts by scooping fish from the water while swimming.

Killdeer: Killdeer is a midium size plover with black and white double breastbands. We've been always wondering about their werid name. Their name is actually from the sound they make is like 'deedeedeedee,kill-deeear'. Below are the photos we took. See the black and white breastbands?

Great Egret: We were sitting on the rocks and watching different ducks and a Great Egret flew and landed about 20 feet away from us. Then it began walking slowly towards us and climbed onto a rock less than 10 feet away. It sat there about 20 minutes preening itself. Some small feathers fell off and blew into our faces! That was the most exciting moment for us that day!

There are two types of white egrets you often can see. One is Great Egret, the other one is Snowy Egret. Sizewise Great Egret is much bigger than the Snowy Egret. It's about 38 inches tall! But sometimes from far away it's hard to tell the size. Easy way is, if it's yellow-billed and black feet, it's Great Egret. If it's black-billed and yellow feet, it's Snowy Egret.

When we were sitting there watching the Great Egret, a Willet showed up! It was the first time we identified Willet.

Willet is a pretty large shorebird with straight long bill which is different from Long-billed Curlew who has a downturned bill. When they fly, their underwing pattern is bold black and white. It's very similar looking as Greater Yellowlegs. The main difference is the leg color. Willet has gray legs and of course, Yellowlegs have yellow legs.

Below is a picture with the Great Egret and Willet together.

We also noticed a white/gray hawk. It was flying above the lagoon with very white belly and black wing tip. And then we identified it was a Osprey.  Osprey are year-round in Baja Mexico and Florida. It's not common in San Diego but occasionally you can spot them when they are on their migration route. We watched it dive down and snatch a big fish from the water. It struggled and was barely able to lift the fish. And it finally brought the fish to the shore to eat. This was the 2nd exciting experience for that day.

Later we were walking on the trail to the east side of the lagoon and we noticed a big black hawk-looking bird on the top of a very tall tree. When we got closer and we realized it was too big to be a hawk. So we looked through our field guide to figure out what it was.

That was a Golden Eagle! The whole body was brown/black without any white spots. Its length is 34inches with wing span can be 84 inches!

We often see Eucalyptus trees in Southern California. Those trees normally are very very tall with slender trunks. We always think they are pretty, fast-growing and can be kaola bears' foods. But today we learn they are actually native to Australia and invading native plant habitats! The leaves and seed pods that fall beneath the trees contain pungent oils that prevent other plants from growing underneath.

Below are some flowers pictures. California Holly and California Buckweed. California Holly gives the name for city of 'Hollywood'.

We also observed Northern Pintails, American Wigeon, Snowy Egret, many Hummingbirds, Cassin's Kingbird, California Gnatcatcher...

Mission Bay San Diego bird watching - Day 1

We went to Mission Bay around sunset. We looked more closely at the birds than we had in the past and tried to identify as many as we could. The light wasn't good so we had to look really hard. We gonna go back with better optics.

We identified mallard, little blue heron, snowy egret, American coots, long-billed curlew, California gull, Rock pigeon, marbled godwit, brown pelican, Heermann's gull, western gull, black-bellied plover, willet and an unidentified tern which need to go back and look again.

We used to always call all the gulls 'seagulls' until last week a ranger told us there was no such a bird called 'seagull'.

Today we identified 'Heermann's gull', 'California gull' and 'Western gull'.

Below is a photo we took has all the three types gulls together.

All the black duck-looking birds with white bills are American coots. The gull  in the center with dark body, white head and red bill is Heermann's gull. The one on the right of Heermann's gull is Western gull. Western gulls are normally larger, with pinkish legs instead of black or yellowish. They have black tails with very white spots on it.

Same as Western gulls, California gulls have white spots on their tails too. But they are smaller size ( around 21 inches long), smaller head and smaller bill compared to their body.

Next photo is an interesting photo. There were a bunch of birds eating some food that people left. We started to get between them and the water. They didn't like this and all took flight at the same time.  Most of those already in the air were mallards and pigeon. Those on the ground running were American coots.

We didn't really get good picture of black-bellied plover. The ones we saw are non-breeding adults. In Winter they migrate to southern California from Northern Alaska. That's why you are not going to see breeding adults in Southern California. One important thing to identify this plover is the length of bill. It's almost same size as their head.

The one on the left is a non-breeding black-bellied plover. The one next to it on the right is marbled-godwit. The breeding adult can look very different from non-breeding ones. See http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/black-bellied_plover/id

Talking about marbled-godwit. To identify this bird, first they show up around shores or marshalls; they dig out foods from sands or muds by their very long, up-turn bill.

To identify mallards are easy, especially males ones. These ducks have a very distinguishing white neck ring with bright green head.

We'll stop here. Continue tomorrow...
Tomorrow we'll try to identify the tern and go to another natural reserve in San Diego area.

Mourning doves came to our yard!!

What a surprise! We spotted a pair of mourning doves on the tree in our yard! They were just resting there, making sounds or cleaning their feather.

Mourning doves are monogamous. They seems always show up in pairs. So far we've seen mourning doves two times, both in pair.

Mourning doves also are the most hunted bird in North America. Every year there are more than 20 millions hunted for either sports or foods. But they are still the most abundant birds in north america mainly because they can breed 6 times a year.

Spotted Towhee

We went to Tecolote Canyon this morning from 7:30am to 9am. Saw lots of birds on bushes but hard to identify. They were too active.

But we did identify a new bird - spotted towhee.

This bird is pretty easy to identify because the expensive white in wings and scapulars; and black primary bases on head, neck and tail.

Behind the black top is bright rusty sides and white chest.
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Spotted_Towhee

Mourning Dove

I always hear very different bird-singing in morning. The sound is like hooooOOhh-whoo-whoo-whoo. Maybe you heard this sound too. I always wonder which bird is singing like this?

The answer is mourning dove!

You can click the link below, there is a 'Play' button on the page, you can click and play the sound.
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/mourning_dove/id

If you heard this too, that means there are mourning doves around your house.

I saw two around our home too. They are very puffy, light brown/gray color. Their eye ring color is like very light blue or very light green. Hard not to notice it since they blink often and a bit slow.

Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve

Went there for the first time today.  It's in Imperial Beach - South of San Diego almost on the US/Mexico border.  There are quite a few nice trails to walk and a good variety of birds.  Highlights of today were a breeding pair of Northern Harrier's constantly hovering around the scrub, and a glimpse of a (endangered) light-footed clapper rail (Jindi spotted it in some moving grass.) There was also a rabbit about the size of a horse (exaggerating a LITTLE.)

Here are some photos of the view:

Here's some of the local wildlife including:  Anna's Hummingbird, a rabbit,  Little Blue Heron, bobcat (lynx rufus) and an unidentified hummingbird,

and here's some of the native plantlife:

pickleweed, orchid, blooming sand verbena and common sage