Bird Word: Yellow-crowned Night Heron at Bolsa Chica

A quick note from an amateur birder: I’ve been asked to post a couple of photos from this past Saturday and Sunday of some of the amazing birds which pass through our area (or reside full time). When I say “our area”, I don’t mean just Belmont Shore and Naples, I’m also including nearby parks and nature preserves such as Talbert Regional Park in Huntington Beach and Bolsa Chica Ecological Preserve, among others. But they are close to home. And typically free to visit! 

The big news among SoCal birders for the past few weeks has been the sighting of a Yellow-crowned Night Heron (YCNH) at Bolsa Chica. He or she is still there as of Sunday morning, hanging out in the lower branches of one of the bare trees. They are at the northeast end of the inland waterway most easily reached from the trail starting at the far southern end of Bolsa Chica street.

The word is, the last Orange County sighting of a YCNH was in 1977. Their usual habitat is in Southern U.S. States and South America. This particular bird is a juvenile, a bit similar to our ubiquitous Black-crowned Night Heron, but with a thicker, darker bill, longer legs, and a longer neck. 

Other birds we saw Sunday morning include three Reddish Egrets (another pretty rare sighting), a Downy Woodpecker, Red-breasted Mergansers, and an assortment of ducks making their way back after a summer absence, plus the usual suspects, including one of my wife Kim’s favorites, the Surf Scoter. 

Our only turkey sighting was on Thursday. (Insert your own joke here).

One of the more sensational visits came two years to Belmont Shore. Click here to read more about that.