Birds are migrating through Southern California
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Sue Horton, The Times’ deputy Metro editor and resident bird expert, recently took a hike:
Call it our annual miracle.
For the next couple of weeks at least, an array of visiting birds will touch down in Southern California. Some will stay the summer, but most are simply passing through, migrating thousands of miles from Central or South America where they spend the winters, to the boreal forests of Canada where they nest.
What does this mean to you? Dust off your binoculars, because your backyard trees may be playing host to some spectacularly beautiful species.
I live in Echo Park, and Tuesday the pecan trees in our backyard were blooming warblers. There were bright-yellow Wilson’s Warblers, stripey Townsend’s and Black-throated Greys, clown-like yellow-black-and-white Hermit’s.
If you don’t have a yard with trees, you might want to head to Griffith Park. The fires that devastated the park a year ago have left a stark and diminished landscape, but they have also made the birds amazingly easy to spot, especially in their bright, breeding plumage.
On an hourlong hike late Monday afternoon, starting from the merry-go-round parking lot, my husband and I saw more than three dozen species, including some of the area’s most dazzling visitors.
Heading uphill, the canyon sides were filthy with singing Lazuli Buntings, a gaudy turquoise and orange songbird that will thrill even the most jaded city-dweller. Higher up, we saw half a dozen Western Tanagers, my nomination for the prettiest bird in the metropolis, with a bright yellow body, black wings and a neon orange head.
We saw Western Kingbirds, Ash-throated flycatchers, Bullock’s Orioles and three species of woodpecker.
Birding at this time of year is a wonder. But as you take in the splendor, remember to pause a moment to think about how amazing migration really is. Creatures with brains smaller than a marble travel hundreds or thousands of miles, navigating by the stars or using an internal magnetic compass that enables them to navigate by the earth’s magnetic fields.
They are hard-wired to get to the right habitat. And I wish we were all hard-wired to appreciate it.
-- Sue Horton
