Birding the Tijuana Refuge 2/3/2015 - Serenaded by Meadowlarks

By Mel Carriere

It's been a while since I have been serenaded by Meadowlarks.  We used to have them around our neighborhood when we were still on the outskirts of town, but in the 15 years since moving here the inexorable advance of civilization has driven most of the Meadowlarks out of town, and I have no one to blame but myself.

Therefore, it was nice to get out this morning and take a walk among the Meadowlarks at the Tijuana Wildlife Refuge.in Imperial Beach, California.  I try to make a pilgrimage here at least once a year in order to renew my waterfowl identification skills and, among other things, to listen to the cheery song of the Meadowlarks that abound on the estuary flats.

I got a little bit of a later start than I wanted to, but I still managed to compile a fairly good list of birds that I will share with you here, in case you are planning on making a visit out west and would like to scratch a species or two off of your list.  Sorry my pictures are so crappy, but I only had my cell phone camera to work with and it is woefully inadequate for bird pictures.  I got one picture of a fuzzy egret but didn't even try to take a shot of anything else.

The first bird to greet me at the 5th Avenue parking lot was an Anna's Hummingbird, one of three or four that I saw during my visit.  It was sunning itself on the fence that separates the refuge from the Navy helicopter base next door.  The male Annas also like to perch high on the top twigs of the Sumac bushes that dot the refuge, vying for space with the male Red-winged Blackbirds that bully them out of the way to get the best high singing posts.

As I made my way down the River Mouth Loop I was accompanied by the constant piping of the Meadowlarks, as well as being greeted with the inquisitive glances of the ubiquitous Belding's Savannah Sparrows that bounced through the bushes wherever I went.

Here is the bench that overlooks the mouth of the Tijuana River, at a place I call Nirvana Point.  I christened it such because I had a Nirvana-like moment here about 1999, when I first started bird watching.  On my first visit to this particular spot I saw so many new, glorious winged creatures that I couldn't flip the pages of the field guide fast enough to keep up.  Today the few shorebirds I could see from here were not particularly active, but there was a mixed flock of Willets/Godwits across the water, two species that seem to frequently make common cause against the harassing Harriers that swoop down low across the estuary flats to snatch up unsuspecting feathered snacks.

In addition to the Willet/Godwit combo I also saw an Advocet parked out across the water, a small flock of diving Scaup, and a Surf Scoter with its laughing clown-like features drifting indifferently with the current.

As I sat atop this bench I took notes on all I surveyed with my phone, but became increasingly annoyed as I discovered just how non bird friendly spell check devices are.  There were definitely no Ornithologists on the spell check board.  My Wigeon kept being changed to widget, my Willet to Will E; whatever sense that means, and my Scaup to scalp, which made me want to scalp the inventor of that wretched device.

While on the subject of Wigeon widgets, I was a disturbed by the lack of dabbling ducks on the waterways.  For two straight years I have not seen any Green-winged or Cinnamon Teal, two birds that used to abound in the inner ponds of the refuge.  The only two dabblers I observed this morning were Wigeons and Pintails, in abundance.

Here is the shot of the fuzzy Great Egret I took.  There were no other Ardeidae visible this morning, with the exception of one skittish Snowy Egret I scared away from Nirvana point.  In the past I have seen Tri-colored and even Reddish Egrets here, along with the more common Great Blue and Little Blue Herons, so this dearth was somewhat of a disappointment.

Here is my complete TWR refuge list for 2/3/2015:

Anna's Hummingbird
Belding's Savannah Sparrow
Western Meadowlark
Great Egret
Red-winged Blackbird
American Wigeon
Snowy Egret
Lesser Scaup
Ruddy Duck
Avocet
Marbled Godwit
Brown Pelican
Surf Scoter
Willet
Northern Harrier
White-crowned Sparrow
Pintail
Stilt
Yellowlegs sp
Sandpiper sp
Kingfisher
Eared Grebe
Whimbrel
Buffledhead
House Finch

I was also troubled by the lack of regard that the nearby residents have for the sanctity of the refuge.  I have no problem with the joggers, but the dog-walkers tend to let their animals off the leash, and the bikers seem to think that they are free to go off-roading through the sensitive plant species, as if this was their private playground.  Seen above is a sign announcing a "Fragile Area," but as you can see the tire treads go right past it, as if it were only some kind of a dare or a joke.

I hope you enjoyed my brief report of the TWR.  If you are a beginning or a novice birder it is a great place to begin padding your list, so make it a stop on your west coast tour.


Meadowlark from:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_meadowlark#mediaviewer/File:Western_Meadowlark.jpg