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2017 Starr Ranch Birdathon Results
24 hours
on parts of April 14, 15 and 23

Expert Birders: Steve Alter, Marian Alter, Vic Liepzig
Marginal Birder: Pete DeSimone

150 species seen/heard (list at bottom) $7,500 raised in pledges and donations - THANK YOU!!!

Congratulations to Catherine L. for final species total guess of 150. You will get a Starr Ranch T-shirt! (I will email you instructions about how to choose the style/size)

All who pledged or made a flat donation to the Birdathon will receive an email with your total and a link to a page to fulfill your pledge. If you pledged a $1 or more per species or pledged/made a flat donation of $100 or more I'll also send you a link to choose your Starr Ranch T-shirt size/style.

Also, no one guessed the 100th species this year. So I'm going to give all of you who pledged or made a flat donation another shot at it. The link to do this will also be in the email. Hint: See the list below and note the location/habitat at the time the 100th bird was tallied...

Post Birdathon and ANY donations are also welcomed and can be made HERE.

THANKS!

Pete

2017 Starr Ranch Birdathon Recap
by Steve Alter

2017 Starr Ranch Birdathon, Pete DeSimone, Vic Leipzig, Marian and Steve Alter,

Scheduling was difficult this year, everyone had conflicting commitments.  So we decided to do our “Big 24 Hours” in segments.  Marian and I started at 6:30 PM on Friday April 14.  We started in Modjeska Canyon, up in the “mountains”, or at least what passes for mountains in OC.  Our first bird was a winter visitor that had been seen for about 3 months now … a Lewis’s Woodpecker.  As we pulled up at 6:30 there it was, on the same telephone pole where it has been reported time and again, a good start to our list.  Then it was up to the end of the road at the Tucker Nature Center, which was closed, but we were able to find some good birds from the parking lot: Band-tailed Pigeon, White-breasted Nuthatch, Black-throated Gray Warbler, Black-chinned Hummingbird, and a surprise … a Lark Sparrow at the bird feeder.  With 25 birds in a total of 10 minutes we got back in the car for the drive downhill.  Our next stop: Irvine Regional Park.  We picked up a noisy flock of Red-crowned Parrots on the way in, and headed straight for the blooming Silky Oaks, which are always full of warblers and tanagers.  There were lots of both, but the variety was not what we had hoped for.  Wood Duck, Western Screech Owl, Great Horned Owl, Barn Owl, Cactus Wren, Common Poorwill, and Lesser Nighthawk were picked up easily.  We left the park as it was getting dark with a total of 41 species.  Then we were back on the road to Upper Newport Bay for rails.  Normally getting rails to talk at night is easy, but for some reason everyone was quiet this night.  We only had one Sora call to us.  I think this is the first time I’ve not been able to get the other two rails when I needed them.  We were done for the night with 42 species.

Saturday morning Vic met us at our house at 5:30 AM.  Pete was still in Michigan repairing Osprey platforms on Fletcher Pond near Hillman and would not be joining us today.  Not meeting at our usual donut shop meant that we’d have to find grackles elsewhere, but Vic lessened the loss by bringing a dozen donuts to fuel our day.  After tanking up on coffee, fat and sugar we set out in the early light.   Quick stops at Shady Canyon, Coyote Canyon and Buck Gully netted a few species, then it was on to Corona del Mar.  Overlooking the rocky shoreline we saw flocks of loons flying northward. In our time there we easily saw several hundred Common Loons fly by (Marian observed that a flock a loons should be called a “Bin” of Loons.  Loonie Bin, get it?)  Add 22 new species and another bad pun to the list.  Back to PCH heading south, we stopped at Reef Point for California Gnatcatcher, and got a bonus.  On the rocky ledge there was movement … Surfbirds!  Wait … more Surfbirds!  And what’s over there?  More Surfbirds!  A veritable surfeit of Surfbirds.  (Don’t blame me, that one was Vic’s line.)  Then back in the car to El Moro Canyon (Say’s Phoebe), Crescent Bay (Black Turnstone) and Heisler Park (the only Heerman’s Gull of the day).  We left the coast with 83 species, not a bad start.

Heading inland we visited Dilley Wilderness Park and Nix Nature Center for a disappointing 5 new species, and picked up two more (Red-winged Blackbird and Turkey Vulture) doing 60 on Laguna Coast Highway. Mason Regional Park gave us six more common birds, then on to San Joaquin Marsh.  I had visited the Marsh the day before and found very little, almost all of the ducks and shorebirds were already gone.  For this reason we decided not to spend much time here as we were already running behind schedule.  First was a very cooperative (Least) Bell’s Vireo singing in the parking lot, then a few remaining ducks; Cinnamon Teal and our 100th species, Gadwall, at about 11 AM.  The Marsh also provided a Great-tailed Grackle, saving us from making a special trip to the donut shop to get one.  Since we hadn’t devoured our dozen original donuts, we weren’t too sad.  Our next stop, Upper Newport Bay, yielded six new species including another lingering duck (Blue-winged Teal) and some sandpipers. 

From Newport Bay we headed north on Pacific Coast Highway, and along the way picked up Elegant Tern “on the fly”.  Then to Harriet Wieder Park.  The ponds on the back-side of Bolsa Chica actually have both water and birds this year.  The pond just below our viewing point has always been good for Redhead ducks … don’t know why, but that one pond is where I always go to look for a Redhead, and this year it did not disappoint. Only one duck, a male, but that’s all we needed.  Looking out over the expanse of ponds you see oil derricks working, and dull mechanical noises are common.  But Vic points out one odd noise that’s not regular enough to be mechanical, kind of a muffled chuckle … a singing Least Bittern!  That’s something special.  Least Bitterns are masters of stealth, so it is very unusual to actually see one.  And to get one doing its song is even more unusual.  For us this is the bird of the day.  Then scanning the ponds we find a small group of birds acting very strangely, running around in tight circles as they feed on the mud flat.  It takes a while to get a good look at them, and after several discussions and references to the field guide we realize that they are Wilson’s Phalaropes.  Normally one sees them feeding by swimming in tight circles in shallow water.  But these birds were out of the water, but still following their normal pattern by comically spinning in circles.  That one took us a while to figure out.  With 10 new species, and a few very special sightings, Harriet Weider Park was very good to us today.  So now on to Bolsa Chica.  The walk there provided 13 new birds, including some early arriving Least Terns, plus a Reddish Egret, one Brant, a Ridgway’s Rail (that we had missed the previous night), a juvenile White-tailed Kite and a crowd of gorgeous Red Knots in breeding plumage.  We were sitting on a total of 136.

Next stop was Mile Square Park in Fountain Valley for a few specific birds.  A Cackling Goose and an Orchard Oriole have hung around here since the Christmas Bird Count.  We easily found the Cackling Goose and a bonus Golden-crowned Sparrow, but we were apparently too late for the Oriole … it had been reported up to a few days before this, but no one has found it since.  So we finished our day (with 140 species) at 4:15 PM, which left 2 hours 15 minutes at the end of the day to complete the last portion of our “Big 24 Hours”.

One week later, April 23, we all assembled at Starr Ranch to complete the Birdathon.  Pete was back from his Michigan, and Vic, Marian and I were all available.  So we piled into Pete’s car at 4:15 PM to finish the job.  The first stop was the pond at the entrance to the Dove Canyon community.  On 3 of the past 4 years this pond has given us a Green Heron, and it came through again this year.  We picked up a few more, then drove into Starr Ranch.  Pete has obviously been working hard to repair the dirt roads, the ride only loosened a couple teeth and gave me a bruise on the forehead, but no need to visit the Emergency Room this year.  In the Coastal Sage habitat we picked up Black-chinned Sparrow, Rufous-crowned Sparrow and Lazuli Bunting by their songs, and a singing Costa’s Hummingbird perched briefly to show off his purple throat.   While walking along the road through a grassy field Vic and I see a Bobcat in front of us.  This doesn’t help with the bird count, but a very cool sighting nonetheless.  In the grassland we were straining to hear another sparrow that is much more often heard than seen, but no luck.  Then Vic picks up some movement in a nearby bush; a silent Grasshopper Sparrow. He sat for a bit checking us out, but never sang.  Did not expect that!    Then, with a few minutes remaining before 6:30 we arrived back at the Ranch in time to see the female Pacific-slope Flycatcher (the star of Pete’s nest camera) sitting on her nest.  (That nest is actually built on top of a mop leaning against the house!)

This turned out to be a productive count, with a grand total of 150 (23 species better than last year).  Our weather had already turned warm, and most of the ducks were gone, but we found a few.  The shorebirds were still here, and the migrants were moving through.  This made for a good diversity of wintering birds and spring migrants, and a decent total.    More importantly, a fun day with good company and fundraising for a worthy cause

Cheers!
Steve Alter

2017 Starr Ranch Birdathon Species List

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