Santiago Oaks Regional Park

Saturday morning Libby and I made our way over to Santiago Oaks Regional Park in search of the Lazuli Buntings which, rumor has it, are flooding Orange County at the moment. As this bird is particularly an attractive one, and Libby and I had both never seen it, we undertook to make the journey despite a limited time frame and some stress on the part of my beloved (her TPA being due this Monday). We were well rewarded for our troubles, having one of our best birding trips in quite a while in terms of both new and beautiful species - too good in fact, as we birded longer than planned and were late for an obligation.

Obviously, then, we did see our Lazuli Buntings. We had one pair in a field of mustard near the base of the large dam in the park. I had hoped to take a picture of them, but was distracted by an interesting mammal. When we endeavored to find them again and take the picture, they had flown off.

The interesting mammal was the rarest species of the day, however, and thus the regret was pleasingly lessened. I noticed what I thought to be a coyote at the base of an oak tree while waiting for the female bunting to fly up out of some mustard. But this coyote began climbing the oak tree, which was bizarre, and I noticed a strong black line along the base of the tale. I brought the creature to Libby's attention and we walked down the hill toward the dam in hopes of getting a better view. We were disappointed to never gain a perfect view of the animal, it was wary and shy, moving about in the tree, and finally out of it and away through some low sage brush, but it struck us as being small for a coyote. As we were arriving at the main trail, we met a man walking his dog who asked us if we had seen the fox. He remarked that he, in his five years of visiting the park, had never seen a fox. I poo-pooed the notion, knowing well the ease with which eager wildlife watchers may falsely identify one common species for a rare one. Never the less, I kept the idea in mind.

I had the idea that it could not be a red fox, for I had read that a black line running along the length of the entire fox is diagnostic. The black in this animal stopped at the beginning of the back. I had thought, however, the tail seemed quite bushy and full for a coyote, and so I decided to give another animal a google when I got home. Namely, the gray fox, our native variety. I was surprised to find that they have a strong black line running along their tail - not their back, and I was further surprised, happily I may add, that they are very well known for climbing trees (that they are the only canid to commonly do so). I therefore have concluded (I am excluding other important evidences for the sake of space) that we did, in fact, see a gray fox, and we are very fortunate to have done so!