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Rare bird spotted near CMA
"Birds have wings," the saying goes, meaning that they can show up in unexpected places.
Outer Cabrillo Beach is a pretty unexpected place for a white wagtail (Motacilla alba), a species that breeds in most of Europe and Asia and winters in Southern Asia and northern Africa. There are 27 previous records of this species accepted by the California Bird Records Committee for the entire state.
On Saturday, December 8, a group of Whalewatch naturalists led by CMA Volunteer Bernardo Alps found the bird during their annual bird walk. A white wagtail is a gray, black and white bird with a long tail and long legs, slightly smaller and more slender than a northern mockingbird, a species that it superficially resembles. The back is gray, the belly and chest are white with a black bib, the folded wings show two white wing bars, a dark line extends from the small beak through the dark eye and the tail is black edged in white. It pumps its tail when on the ground and runs in short spurts when pursuing kelp flies.
Word of the rare find went out on the internet within minutes and soon birders started flocking to the beach from far and wide. While this species is easy to see in its natural range, birders want to add it to their local bird lists, e.g. North America, California and Los Angeles County. And the bird has been most cooperative. As of this writing it has been present for a week and easy to find. It spends most of its time in the open; on the sand of the western part of outer Cabrillo Beach or on the rocks of the nearby tidepool habitat. The easiest way to find it is to look for a group of people pointing expensive binoculars and enormous camera lenses at a single spot on the beach.
Experts have pegged the bird as a hatch year individual by the color of the bill and of the forehead. Now a spirited debate rages online as to the exact subspecies, M. a. ocularis or M. a. lugens. Both have occurred in California and were previously considered separate species. Members of the two subspecies are extremely difficult to tell apart in their first winter, so we might never know for sure.
The Cabrillo Beach white wagtail is a pretty little bird and fun to watch.
Post Date: Friday, December 14, 2012
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