Phalaropes and gulls

 

If you have been following the news, you may have seen that Southern California had a pretty much unprecedented amount of rain for November. In fact, the EIGHT inches that fell over a spell of just four days and may have been a record for almost any time of year.  Although the winds associated with the storm were weak, they were enough to bring some phalaropes and gulls ashore.

After seeing Red (Grey for any UK readers) and Red-necked Phalaropes and Bonaparte’s Gulls at the Santa Ynez River Mouth, I returned there on November 21 to lead a Santa Barbara Audubon field trip there. The heavy rains had caused the river mouth to blow open the day before so the extensive flooding on the saltmarsh had largely receded and there were now some intertidal sand flats right at the mouth.

Red Phalarope

Since it was already a couple of days since the last of the rain, I was worried that all the birds might have left so I was very relieved to see some close-in Red Phalaropes right by the parking lot. This species is generally only found on-shore in late fall and early winter storms, so the participants really enjoyed getting such great looks. A short walk further west towards the river mouth brought us closer to four Red-necked Phalaropes. Although this species is common on-shore from August to around mid-October, by mid-November it is the less expected of the two species.

First-year and adult Bonaparte's Gulls

In addition to the phalaropes there was a good total of 24 Bonaparte’s Gulls feeding in the river mouth. This species was formerly a common winterer in the county with one to two thousand birds. However, wintering numbers crashed in the late 1990s, just prior to my arrival in the county. It remained possible to occasionally see hundreds in a day in the right conditions during migration up until ten years ago, but I am increasingly happy to just see any Bonaparte’s Gulls these days. There was also a single Forster’s Terns feeding in the river mouth. This is another species that also used to winter commonly on the south coast of the county but whose numbers crashed a few years ago.

We then walked out to where the river entered the ocean. We spent some time working through a mixed group of gulls and Royal Terns. The north coast of the county is significantly better than the south coast for large gulls, especially American Herring Gull. We ended up finding six of the latter, including an adult, a third-year and four first-years. A couple of Glaucous-winged Gulls were also present among the larger numbers of Western and California Gulls. Mid-sized gulls were represented by Heermann’s with four Short-billed (Mew) and a single Ring-billed. There was no sign of any Thayer’s Iceland Gulls, but apparently these have been very late arriving further north.

American Herring Gull

Turning our attention to shorebirds, there were 73 Black-bellied (Grey for UK readers) Plovers and over 200 Sanderling. A nice selection of other species were consorting with the Sanderling flock, including Least and Western Sandpipers, Dunlin and both Black and Ruddy Turnstones. Ruddy Turnstones is becoming rather uncommon in the county with fewer than ten recorded most years. Higher up the beach, dozens of Snowy Plovers were hunkered down, accompanied by the odd Killdeer and Semipalmated Plover.

Heading back to the parking lot, we spent some time scanning the area up river. Although there were plenty of the regular duck and grebe species, there was really nothing exceptional. A late Barn Swallow was the best and this species is increasingly expected during the winter months.