Ah, California. Oranges, the Beach Boys, surfing dudes, wetlands, mountains, and deserts, great birds and great birding of course - and, what was that other thing I keep forgetting about? Oh, yes, FOG! Huge great sky-darkening, end-of-the-world-resembling, camera-messing banks of never-ending FOG. Take a look at the two photos below: both were taken from my hotel room in Long Beach (Los Angeles) - one at 07:00 the morning I had the whole day off to go where I wanted and see what I wanted, the second at 07:00 on the morning that I had just four hours spare to go where etc etc before a long and busy flight back to the UK at noon. If anyone needs more than one guess to work out which photo was taken on which day, then they don’t really understand quite how poorly my luck has been running lately…

Day One: Go and enjoy yourself Charlie - you have all day…

Day Two: Don’t go too far now, early pick-up from the hotel remember…

Not good eh? And not especially memorable blogging either darn it. I had, in fact, planned to go south down to the fabulous Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve about an hour’s drive away, especially after I read Mike’s enthusiastic and bird-crammed account from last month. The last time I went to Bolsa (as us locals call it) it was undergoing extensive restoration work and was all but closed off to the public - judging by what Mike saw the situation was much improved and back to it’s birder-friendly best. However, the time before the last time that I’d been to Bolsa I’d driven down in a deep, dark tunnel of the dreaded coastal fog, and then sat for hours waiting for the sun to burn it off as I fidgeted glumly and listened to all manner of oddly distorted calls drifting across the lagoon (mostly from birds, I suspect who like me were wondering when the lights were going to come back on).

Suffice to say I stayed in the hotel and went back to sleep - which means, dear readers, I’m afraid you’ll just have to make do with some photos I took in November 2004 at Bolsa of a bird I had hoped to get lots of photos of this time round (but obviously didn’t): the threatened beldingi race of Savannah Sparrow, which - when there’s no fog - is a dead-cert at Bolsa Chica. Oh well, recycling is a ‘good thing’, and hopefully I’ll get to travel somewhere soon that is just ripe for a good blogging and post something new and wonderful (for a change)…

Savannah Sparrow
Passercula sandwichensis beldingi

Bolsa Chica Wetland, California. November 2004

Like many of North America’s more widespread sparrows, Savannah Sparrows are highly variable and sometimes highly confusing. Most subspecies generally have yellow lores and sometimes yellow through the supercilium, and most have a whitish median crown stripe - an exception being the dark and heavily streaked “Belding’s” Savannah Sparrows. Once split as a separate species Belding’s Savannah Sparrows Passerculus sandwichensis beldingi are endemic to southern California’s and northwestern Baja California’s coastal salt marshes, living and preferring to nest in the mid- to upper-littoral zones. They eat insects, seeds and some vegetation, and - remarkably for a bird - have adapted to drinking saltwater.

Belding’s Savannah Sparrow has suffered population declines with the loss of suitable high pickleweed marsh: in California, over 75% of the pre-settlement acreage of California’s coastal wetlands have been lost to human development. They are nonmigratory and are therefore dependent on salt marsh habitat during all months of the year. Listed as endangered by the State of California, statewide censuses of Belding’s Savannah Sparrows reveal wide fluctuations in local population sizes, with local extinctions occurring in some years (Zembal et al. 1988). The population dynamics of Belding’s Savannah Sparrow may therefore reflect the effects of fragmentation.

One of the easiest and most reliable places to still see them is Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve, which is found on the east side of the Pacific Coast Highway in the city of Huntington Beach (south of Los Angeles). They are often found in the small car-park adjacent to the main boardwalk (or “walkbridge”) across the lagoon, and are usually quickly located as they flutter low over the marsh vegetation or feed along the exposed mud banks at the lagoon edge: the photos below were all taken just by the boardwalk one early morning in November.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Further info: “Populations of Belding’s Savannah Sparrows in California are weakly correlated with habitat area, but there are few large wetland fragments remaining within their range. We conducted research in a fragmented wetland complex, and measured territory sizes and reproductive success of sparrows as well as habitat characteristics. We found no relationship between territory size and reproductive success, but all available habitat within the marshes was occupied, suggesting that even low quality habitat was being used. Although reproductive success was not strongly linked to vegetational characteristics, we found significant differences in reproductive success between birds nesting in large wetland complexes versus those nesting in small, isolated marshes. Sparrows nesting in a small, isolated salt marsh failed to produce fledglings over the course of the breeding season, but birds nesting in a small, connected wetland succeeded. Large wetland complexes are likely to be population sources, while small, isolated marshes act as population sinks. Because of the overall rarity of salt marsh habitats in this region, all sizes of remnant marshes are important, and therefore restoration planning should take place on a regional level”. Powell , A.N. and C. L. Collier - 1998. Reproductive success of Belding’s Savannah sparrows in a highly fragmented landscape. Auk 115:508-513.www.npwrc.usgs.gov/belding/belding.htm)

All photographs © Charlie Moores