Date: 10/19/25 10:31 pm From: Naresh Satyan via groups.io <naresh.satyan...> Subject: [LACoBirds] Some miscellaneous notes from Saturday 10/19
Hi all,
I had my first Lesser Black-backed Gull of the season along the LA river at Slauson today, 2 weeks later than the first birds last year. I expect there will be many more through the winter, and it is always a challenge at the end of the season to figure out how many individuals were present. I encourage everyone to photograph all Lesser Black-backed Gulls you find in the county -- (both sides of) the bill and profile view would be great where possible. Herring Gulls have also begun to arrive on the river in the past 2 weeks.
Later in the afternoon, Lance Benner and I went to Santa Fe dam and birded for a couple of hours either side of sunset. The open areas south and west of the lake had a few interesting birds:
- A juvenile White-tailed Kite was in the area, last seen hunting until a flock of 50 crows moving through the basin decided to harass it. I also had a White-tailed Kite last Friday at the Whittier Narrows dam across the Rio Hondo. This species hasn't been easy to find in the San Gabriel valley in recent years - A Loggerhead Shrike was singing at sunset - The main goal of the trip was to try to find nightjars. Lesser Nighthawks wintered here in 2023-24, and were present through at least the end of October in 2024. On roughly the same date last year (Oct 18, 2024), we had 2 Lesser Nighthawks and 9 Common Poorwills. Today, we found 4 Lesser Nighthawks at dusk, and 10 Common Poorwills both in the open fields as well as hunting from rocks on the dam.
I didn't find any nightjars at the Rio Hondo dam at Whittier Narrows on Friday, but it could be interesting to check for Common Poorwills and Lesser Nighthawks at similar rocky dams in the area in the fall (Hansen dam, Whittier Narrows, Sepulveda Basin?).
A note that Santa Fe Dam is now closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, and charges a daily entrance fee even on weekdays when it is open ($15 per car, $8 for seniors). Operating hours change on November 1, and these last two weeks of October are the last days when the park is still open for an hour and a half after sunset.
