Date: 11/29/25 10:37 pm From: Braxton Landsman via groups.io <balbhl...> Subject: [OrangeCountyBirding] Minor stuff over the past few days
Hi all,
I've spent several of the last 4 or so days birding around smaller underchecked parks in the county looking for wintering vagrants. While I found no true vagrants, I did turn up several minor winter rarities and while this listserve is slow I figured I'd share.
Tuesday 11/25--Sasha Cahill and I birded the Least Tern preserve at Santa Ana River mouth as well as both sides of Fairview Park in hopes of longspurs. As expected, there were none, and very few pipits overall, and was just a fairly small flock of Horned Larks at the river mouth. Afterwards we birded Tewinkle Park, which despite constant lawnmowers and leafblowers was quite productive; a female type Summer Tanager and a very dull Nashville Warbler were in the eucs just Northeast of the ballfields.
Thursday 11/27--I birded some parks in inland south county, both locations and a region in general that is rarely covered at all. I started the morning at Oak Tree Park in Las Flores, which was extremely birdy, especially in the mixed-oak "woodland" ravine in the northern part of the park. Here I was able to pull out a male Hooded Oriole, quite a nice bird for the date and especially the location. Other parks near here afterward weren't as productive
Friday 11/28--Tino Tubenose and I birded many locations in NW OC looking for vagrants. We started the morning at San Gabriel River Mouth hoping there'd either be a gull flock or scoter raft; tho neither of those were present. Out of the 5 parks we checked in the Seal Beach and Huntington Beach area; the sole half-decent bird was a brightish Yellow Warbler in the ficus trees at Seabridge Park(no eider...yet). While no other notable birds were in these parks, they were all quite birdy, especially in white-flowering bottlebrush trees (Broad-leaved Paperbark, i believe). After seeing the Canada warbler and the remarkably confiding Bay-breasted Warbler at Huntington Central Park; we headed towards costa mesa to finish up the day. We started with my first (tho long overdue) visit to the southern section of Talbert Nature Preserve. Despite being slow with flooded trails and many homeless, the riparian habitat is quite extensive and promising looking, especially for spring. Tiny Marina View Park was dead but the few Tipu trees across the street were very active, yet the trend continued; no goodies. Canyon park, as expected, was dead at that hour. Estancia Park's tipus were extremely birdy, with lots of expected warblers and a single Nashville Warbler as well, another decent but not unexpected species in winter. Nearby Mesa Verde Park had a Vermillion Flycatcher
Saturday 11/29--Tino, Avo Stilt (Robert Alcid) and I went on a whale watch out of Newport Harbor. This trip was supposed to be 2 1/2 hours yet we got in after barely 2 hours for some reason. Nevertheless, bird activity was quite impressive just 4-5 miles offshore, with large numbers (1500+) of Black-vented Shearwaters, many gulls(including 3 Herring and 40+ Bonaparte's), and pelicans. 2-3 Red Phalaropes were also scattered around, yet no Fulmars despite large numbers a few weeks ago. Afterwards we checked some parks in the Newport Beach and Irvine area, mostly much of the same: birdy tipu and flowering stuff, yet no real goodies. Highlights were a continuing Nashville Warbler at Canyon Park (IRVINE), and a new male Summer Tanager at Turtle Rock Community Park.
I encourage everyone to bird their local parks this winter; especially those with flowering eucalyptus, bottlebrush, and of course tipu trees. You will not only fill in valuable data but have a good chance at finding whatever awesome wintering vagrants are out there!
