Midwinter Records from the Vicinity of San Diego, California
Midwinter Records from the Vicinity of San Diego, California
For the past sixteen Years the writer has participated, with other members of the San Diego Society of Natural History, in the annual Christmas Bird Census which is sponsored by the National Association of Audubon Societies. The route followed each year has been essentially the same. Many of the species recorded have been found in the same territory at each visit, if the character of the region has remained unchangedby man. For example, we have found one or two Vermilion Flycatchers (Pyrocephalus rubinus flammeus) at a certain pond near National City six times in the last seven years.
The 1937 census, which was taken on December 22, included two species heretofore not recorded as Winter birds for the vicinity of San Diego. On that date the writer, in company of Clinton G. Abbott and Samuel G. Hatter, watched a Western Least Bittern (Ixobrychus exilis kesperis) for almost half an hour as it perched in the tules at the edge of a small pond on the north side of Sweetwater Valley near National City.
Frank F. Gander and James E. Crouch, who also participated in the census, confined their observations to the water front and recorded twenty-eight American Knots (Calidris canutus rufus). The large number of this species observed and the fact that the knot had not previously appeared , in. the San Diego census raised the question of correct identification. So the day following, December 23, the writer and Mr. Gander again visited the beach on the bay side of the strand south of Coronado. Three knots were found and one of them collected, thus establishing the bird’s identity. Mr. Gander stated that in the course of the census, knots were seen in small groups of two or three birds, from the vicinity of Lindbergh Field south along the bay side of the Coronado Strand to the head of San Diego Bay. Examination of the few specimens of knots in the collection of the San Diego Society of Natural History revealed one unrecorded winter-taken bird, a female, collected at Pacific Beach, San Diego, California, on February 12, 1892, by Frank Stephens.
Lawrence M. Huey
San Diego Society of Natural History, Balboa Park, San Diego, California, January 5, 1938
