More SoCal birding — Mallard… Mallard… Mallard… um… Huh?

(I know, non birders wll find this boring, but what the heck….)

I had to go run some errands today, so since I wanted to take my walk I decided to head out and do some (surprise) birding as well. first stop was Tri-City park here in Placentia, which was very uninteresting, except for a few yellow-rumped warblers (my first of the fall, but not exactly notable). I shifted and headed to another place I’ve birded before, Lakeview Park, which is on the Santa Ana river (at, surprise, Lakeview and happens to be right next to the Kaiser hospital where mom had surgery). I discovered it when dad was sick and I was down in the area, and it can both be somewhat interesting with migrants and the river channel has standing water and some foliage so it also has some shorebird habitat, ducks, egrets and etc. At one point a little blue heron was found there, although I wasn’t in town for it.

So it’s an interesting place to visit at the right times, and what the heck, it was a nice, sunny day, warm but not too warm. How bad could it be? Pretty darn fun, actually. The area between the park and the hospital is full of mature trees and bushes and is a good place to search for migrants. today, there was a flock of at least 15 yellow-rumps and five (maybe six) hatch year western bluebirds, all in various stages of moult into their adult blues.

After watching the butter-butts for a while (I’ll get tired of them by January, but now, they’re new friends back in town), I wandered out to the channel. The river here has a decent flow and the area around Lakeview has some flood control channelling, so there are some ponds and some muddy shores and there’s a fair amount of green habitat that the blackbirds like. You look over it from a bike trail where you’re 25-30′ above the ground, so views are a bit distant, but with binocs or a scope you can see well.

The first thing I did was scare out a Green heron, who went squawking into the middle of the channel, where he picked up a friend and the two of them flew off to the far side of the channel, loudly complaining. Checking out the ducks I found a few Gadwalls among the mallards, plus one much smaller duck I finally decided was a female cinnamon teal (no males visible) — definitely a female teal of some sort.

Other notable birds found there today included two spotted sandpipers and an osprey that flew by downstream without. It circled the pond twice then headed off to better hunting grounds. I was about to leave and decided it was just too nice a day, so I sat on a rock and enjoyed the view and the weather and did one more check through the ducks…

Mallard… Mallard… Mallard… Gadwall… Two mallards head bobbing (hey! it’s the wrong season… oops. too late… Mallard.

Wait, that’s not a Mallard. Sitting off by itself in some weeds was a duck, green head, but — not a mallard. No, for some reason, there was a male Wood Duck hanging out at the edge of the pond.

Which just happens to be a lifer for me. My third in the last week.

Not complaining, you understand… That’s a species I’ve gone looking for up north a few times — and dipped every time. And that’s why you check out all of the duck flocks; you never know what’s in there..

(note: this location isn’t where the great crested flycatcher was seen a few days ago; it’s about a mile upriver. I was tempted, but this place has parking and I had a feeling the flycatcher was gone, since it hasn’t been reported in a few days, so I stuck with a familiar place…)

Location:     santa ana river @ lakeview
Observation date:     10/2/09
Number of species:     28

Canada Goose     1
Wood Duck     1
Gadwall     6
Mallard     X
Cinnamon Teal     1
Pied-billed Grebe     1
Great Blue Heron     1
Great Egret     1
Snowy Egret     2
Green Heron     2
Black-crowned Night-Heron     1
Turkey Vulture     3
Osprey     1
American Coot     X
Killdeer     1
Black-necked Stilt     2
Spotted Sandpiper     2
Greater Yellowlegs     1
Willet     4
peep sp.     X
Mourning Dove     X
Anna’s Hummingbird     2
Black Phoebe     3
Western Bluebird     5
Northern Mockingbird     1
Yellow-rumped Warbler     12
Red-winged Blackbird     X
Brewer’s Blackbird     X
House Finch     X

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)

You might also want to read:

  1. SoCal birding… As I’ve hinted at a bit here and in twitter, I’m in SoCal this week, because mom needed to undergo a little surgery and I...
  2. Birding Anderson Valley Over the weekend, Laurie and I went out on an extended drive, heading out 130 from Alum Rock past Lick Observatory and then down Anderson...
  3. I went birding! No, really! The sun came out, the temperatures moderated, and I just needed to get out of the office for a bit, so I ran down to...
  4. Ed Levin area birding.. Late report, but I spent a couple of hours at Ed Levin and up on Marsh road sunday afternoon. I started at Ed Levin in...
  5. A good day Birding — Merced NWR, O’Neil forebay Update: photos now available here: Laurie and I joined Bob Power of Santa Clara Valley Audubon on a group outing to Merced NWR, O’Neill Forebay...