Activity 3:
There are soooo many birds that frequent Los Angeles County that I have yet to see or add to a checklist!
Here are some I'm going to be looking out for:
Cinnamon Teal
Western Grebe
Downey Woodpecker
Several swallow species - this will be a challenge to learn to identify individual species!
California Gnatcatcher (such cute little black hoods! I'm familiar with the blue-gray gnatcatcher but not this one)
Western Meadowlark (songs and calls are beautiful and unique - should be helpful)
Activity 1:
Today I spent about half an hour birding in a local park in Pasadena, Calif - Hugo Reid Park. I was curious to return here because last month when I first visited this park, I only saw a few birds. Yet I was certain that the time of day wasn't ideal and that there were likely to be many more birds in the area. I was rewarded with 14 species this morning. Most exciting was a Merlin! It was perched high in a tree across the street. I watched it for a few minutes, trying to discern if it was a Merlin or perhaps a sharp-shinned hawk or something else. I quickly looked it up in the Merlin app and could see that this bird shared many of the characteristics described - dark head, lighter streaked breast/front. When it took off I noticed the rapid wing beat pattern and that clinched it - it WAS a Merlin!
Here's a link to my complete checklist:
https://ebird.org/checklist/S99577304
I've been lucky lately with raptor sightings. I think the pic above is a red-shouldered hawk seen at a local college campus. It was lightly raining at the time and the bird was surprisingly bold, sitting on the lawn and gracefully swooping into a tree and then to a lamppost. Such beautiful color and form! I also got lucky with a bald-eagle sighting this week!