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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hamhed" data-source="post: 3666557" data-attributes="member: 70825">Day 12We woke on Christmas morning to a change in our itinerary.  Reports of a pair of rare birds in San Diego, a mere 45 minutes south, had us headed that way before most of that city were awake and checking under the tree.  With help from a Theresa, a San Diego Birding Pal who was able to give us explicit directions,  we were on the western edge of the bay before 7am, looking over the water to a series of buoys where a rare Nazca Booby was being seen.   Just 30 minutes later, watching Brown Pelicans, Surf Scoters, Willets and others pass us, the Booby magically appeared on the far left buoy.  For an additional 30 minutes, after getting scope views, I tried my best to get a photo that might capture that orange bill and the striking black and white pattern.  The bird was on the other side of the bay, as much as 4000 feet (1219M) across the water.  I did what I could with my five year old Canon SX50 at maximum zoom, getting a very blurry record shot.Twenty minutes south, at a small school yard adjacent to a small park was a small, fenced field containing more than a dozen Pipits.  Some patient birder had gone over those birds and found that one of those Pipits was not an American but a Red-throated.  We located the oddity, lost it then found it again with the help of local birder, Dave Povey, who had the good sense to bring a scope as the main field mark, heavy streaking on the back, was not always easy to see.Dave also made us aware of the presence of Allen’s Hummingbirds.  Before long, we picked one out, high in a flowering eucalyptus, Liz’s first and my second.  The Christmas presents kept on coming!Dave proved to be a great connection and so we took his advice to drive a few more blocks south to a park for California Gnatcatchers.  Two Blue-gray Gnatcatchers immediately tried to fool us.    Not expecting any numbers of raptors, we nevertheless counted 5 Red-tailed Hawks, a Cooper’s Hawk and a Harrier while there.  However, after 45 minutes, the Gnatcatcher was not to be found. Trying to catch up somewhat with our original schedule, we drove back north to San Elijo Lagoon, setting out near noon on trails crowded with others enjoying an outing on the holiday.  Birds in the water included Teal, Gadwalls, Widgeons and Northern Pintails.  Dozens of small sandpipers flew regularly over the marshes and Long-billed Dowitchers rapidly probed the mud.  Bushtits, never alone, scrambled quickly from thick brush to thicker brush.  Of course, there were Yellow-rumped Warblers and a few others.  We’d been there a full hour before Liz found a pair of Gnatcatchers that we nearly lost but refound and identified as the California variety.  The balance of our time at San Elijo was spent scrambling through the narrow slot in the sandstone called Annie’s Canyon (<a href="https://www.sanelijo.org/act" target="_blank">https://www.sanelijo.org/act</a>).Early afternoon found us on the road, eventually at Mason Park in Irvine, an hour south of LA.  This was a typical of the parks we’d visited, an open, grassy picnickers park with a good sized pond and walking trails.  The park was fairly active with both people and birds.  We found many Bushtits and hummingbirds, a Spotted Sandpiper, hundreds of Coots, some of them looking for handouts and three Japanese White-eyes, a striking exotic.  They were active little birds, gone quickly and we failed to photograph them.  An established exotic both here and in Florida, a  pair of Egyptian Geese waddled apart from the many Canada Geese. Our celebratory Christmas dinner was canned soup at the Airbnb location in Costa Mesa.Bird lists here:<a href="http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S41303886" target="_blank">http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S41303886</a><a href="http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S41307965" target="_blank">http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S41307965</a><a href="http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S41307908" target="_blank">http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S41307908</a><a href="http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S41316619" target="_blank">http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S41316619</a><a href="http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S41316630" target="_blank">http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S41316630</a></blockquote>

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