A wet weekend birding at Central Park

VIC LEIPZIG AND LOU MURRAY

We were just beginning to get used to the idea that summer was over

when winter arrived with a big wet storm. What happened to autumn?

Vic had papers to grade this past weekend, so I decided to search

for that lost season without him. Besides, the Orange County Rare

Bird Alert had posted a sighting of a black-throated blue warbler at

Huntington Central Park. As a point of pride, I wanted to see if I

could find it without the assistance of my professional birder

husband.

The skies dropped a deluge Saturday night, with more than an inch

of rain registered by the Goldenwest College weather station. On

Sunday, more rain was forecast, but I decided to risk getting wet by

walking in the park. I figured that I’d be the only one there given

the inclement weather, but the park was packed and howling with

activity. Literally.

Cerritos High School was having a dog walking fund-raiser.

Hundreds of dogs walked their owners along the pathways.

Before the dogs distracted me, I searched the trees on the east

side of the park by Gothard for the vagrant black-throated blue

warbler. I found plenty of yellow-rumped warblers, which are our most

numerous winter warblers. Birders fondly call them butterbutts

because of the characteristic yellow feathers at the base of the

tail. But I saw no black-throated blue warbler.

I did manage to find an orange-crowned warbler, a couple of

black-throated gray warblers, and three Townsend’s warblers. The

latter are favorites of mine because of their strikingly beautiful

yellow and black face markings. One of them appeared to have a yellow

moon over his eye. He looked a bit like a hermit warbler, but I

couldn’t convince myself that he was anything other than an odd

Townsend’s warbler. Later, I saw a report on the rare bird alert that

a Townsend’s/hermit warbler hybrid was lurking there.

Golden brown leaves drifted down from sycamore trees with every

stormy gust. Our trees in town don’t do the dramatic New England

thing of turning brilliant yellow, orange, and red, so we have to

make do with muted shades of amber and toast unless we take a trip to

the local mountains. Still, this was shaping up to be a pretty fine

autumn day.

Then I spotted a bright bird perched in the white alders. I noted

its uniform golden-red color and tanager-shaped bill. Once I got

home, I looked it up in my bird field guide. It seemed to be a female

summer tanager, a species that breeds in southeastern Arizona, but

visits here on occasion during winter. I was too uncertain of my

sighting to post it on the rare bird alert, but Monday’s e-mail

confirmed that others had seen a female summer tanager there too.

Mallards and American widgeons paddled about the shallow water of

Talbert Lake, finding things to eat in the grassy-bottomed pond that

had formed over summer’s meadow.

In times past, the lowlands of Central Park were filled with

perennial ponds that were fed by numerous springs. Freeman Creek

flowed year-round through the area from at least as far away as

Gothard and Warner. There is still a remnant wetland south of Ocean

View High School, but the flow of fresh water stopped long ago as the

water tables were pumped down first by agriculture, and then by

development.

We’ll never see that creek flow again. Now rainwater courses off

parking lots and streets into flood control channels instead of

soaking into the meadows and open fields that used to be here. This

prevents recharge of the groundwater. Instead of flowing back into

the ground, the detritus-laden storm water rushes to sea. How sad and

how wasteful.

Plenty of storm water runoff carrying plastic, Styrofoam, oil, and

other urban detritus flowed through Central Park on Sunday. The storm

water flows through a muddy ditch on its way to the Slater Flood

Control Channel, which empties into the Wintersburg Flood Control

Channel, and thence to Bolsa Bay, Huntington Harbor and Anaheim Bay.

The city plans to install a debris catcher in Central Park’s

waterways, which will reduce the amount of trash that ultimately ends

up in the ocean.

From the band shell, I glanced at the darkening sky. Black clouds

sailed rapidly over me. To race the looming clouds, I cut across what

looked like a dry part of Talbert Lake. Uh oh. What seemed to be a

dry spot wasn’t. I plunged ankle-deep into water hidden under a

deceptive layer of cut grass floating on the surface. That’s when it

started raining again.

I figured I was about as wet as I could get, so I just continued

birding. I was rewarded with a flock of white-crowned sparrows,

recently arrived here for the winter. I found a dark-eyed junco among

them, an unusual bird for Huntington Beach. I also spied a nice

hermit thrush, another winter visitor, hiding in the underbrush.

The sun came back out, albeit briefly, with a promise of more rain

in the clouds beyond. I didn’t find that black-throated blue warbler,

but several days of storms are sure to blow in other unusual birds,

both to Central Park and Bolsa Chica. If you want to know where to

find unusual avian visitors, you can join the rare bird alert by

logging on to https://groups.yahoo. com/group/OrCoRBA or by phoning

(949) 487-6869. Good birding to you.

* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and

environmentalists. They can be reached at vicleipzig@aol.com.