Birdwatching in L.A.

This Saturday, Libby's roommate Bethany and her fiance Wade, Libby and I went birdwatching together at Ken Malloy Harbor City Regional Park.

The idea of going there stemmed from two facts:
1) Chantry Flats is inaccessible
2) I saw a website about how it had such good birding on the internet.

I had no idea that this very park was the park where Reggie the Alligator made his murky abode. Nevertheless, such was the case. We stepped into a scene from Jaws itself! Surrounding the water was an orange fence. Caution tape circled the lake at a further distance. Ominous signs warned us of the imminent danger of going too near the water.

After all, Reggie is seven feet long. He could eat you!

Soon after we arrived, we were standing by the shore of the lake, looking through our binoculars at birds, when a truck pulled up behind us. A man in a tank top jumped out and walked over to us. "Do you see him?" he drawled. Apparently this man was an expert alligator hunter from the Southern half of our country. After a moment's confusion (at the time, birds were more on our mind than reptiles), I responded that no, we hadn't. I asked him if he'd seen him, and he assured us that he had for the last two evenings seen him. As for his plans for the great lizard,

"I have something special planned for him."

I wish I had asked what that was!

Perhaps it was the ladder that they roped into a pontoon-style boat. And by roped in, I mean that they had it standing up, with ropes going from the railings of the boats to the legs, so that it wouldn't tip over. The park rangers drove this boat around the lake, and this fellow (whom Libby affectionately styled her friend) sat on the top of it, gazing down into the waters around the edge of the lake. I don't think they saw him, unfortunately.

The day was, on the whole, a very slow day for birding. We saw a lot of birds that we see a lot of all the time, anyway. Soon the consuming idea was to see Reggie. Reggie is way cooler than a bird. Mostly because he eats people. Unfortunately, we never did. All the same we had an interesting time, and near the very end of the trip we did see some neat birds, including one or two listers. (domestic muscovy duck and a flock of chipping sparrows).

The bird list:

1. rock doves
2. great tailed grackles
3. ruddy ducks
4. brewers blackbirds
5. red-winged blackbirds
6. canada goose
7. domestic duck
8. greylag goose
9. domestic goose with the hump on its nose (what's the name, again?)
10. muscovy duck
11. black crowned night heron (several immatures)
12. great egret
13. snowy egret
14. great blue heron
15. green heron
16. american coot
17. mallard
18. black pheobe
19. cassin's kingbird
20. american crow
21. red-tailed hawk
22. kestrel
23. california towhee
24. say's pheobe (woo-hoo for seeing our engagement bird: a first in so. cal for me!)
25. pied billed grebe
26. white-crowned sparrow
27. western meadowlark
28. bushtit
29. chipping sparrow
30. california gull
31. Lesser goldfinch
32. Mourning dove

I thought maybe we saw a Bonaparte gull, but it was too high to get a good read on it. Shucks!