California Gnatcatcher, San Diego, California

this week on Nikon's birding adventures TV we're in San Diego County in Southern California more species of birds have been recorded here than in any other County in North America close to 500 species on this week's episode we're going to go in search of some of the Southern California specialty birds and our golden bird for this episode is the California gnatcatcher let's go birding what's up Yui let's go burden Aram San Diego County's arguably the best burden County in the United States when it comes to diversity from seventy miles of oceanfront beaches to canyons mountains histories deserts and forests San Diego is a true birders paradise the annual San Diego bird festival is a wonderful way to explore the county's rich wildlife with daily tours to all the distinct habitats the mountain trips offer great species like stellar's jay nettles woodpecker band-tailed pigeon mountain chickadees with their distinct white eye stripes fay no kepler western bluebirds and the tiny pygmy nuthatch the estuaries and coastal areas are also home to some highly sought after birds and for those adventurous birders that have their sea legs there's always the pelagic trips which offer great species like albatross cormorants and other pelagic birds behind me is the San Elijo Lagoon and it's high tide right now which is excellent news for Nelson's shop tail sparrows it's safer community the Snelson sparrow there's one possibly two at this location this year I don't know if they've been detected throughout the rest of the county this year so it's pretty special to have these at this Lagoon this year nice high tides as I was mentioning earlier will push a lot of these marsh birds up to the edges and we had good fortune today foraging in the wreck line over here just above the high-tide mark at seaside in northern San Diego is an unusual race of the Savannah sparrow called the Belding Savannah sparrow these guys are just running along the seaweed here that's washed up and catching all the little insects in the wreck line there's a wonderful group of about 40 western snowy plovers and snowy plovers like the piping plover is a bird that is threatened in north america this Western race is actually a resident here and although they haven't bred on this particular beach at seaside for many years due to human disturbance they are still here in very good numbers thus birding adventures episode is powered by an icon the world leader and optics since 1917 and sponsored in part by the Commission for arts and culture city of San Diego well after a rainy morning here in the sage scrub the Sun has finally come out and we're looking for some of these specialty Birds of the San Diego area they're quite easy to remember because many of them have the word California in front of their names so this California Thrasher California Towey California gnatcatcher California quail was found right here in the same scrub but this beautiful and allotted call of a California Thrasher sitting on top of the sage bush and over here nice curved ball nice white throat and you can see that little white throat Buffett as he makes that melodic core marking his territory and run attract females stunning bird California Thrasher another one of the special Birds that a lot of the burners around San Diego like to call the California's is the California Toey and there's one just perched up nicely on this bush over here it's preening a nice afternoon light so one of the other California's is the California quail and there's a lovely Covey of them what I chair just making their early morning call and announcing their territory the stunning California quails are birds which are common in Southern California but are definitely more often heard than seen their distinctive calls occur across the San Diego valleys in the mornings and late afternoons California quails are sexually dimorphic with the male's outfitted in gunmetal gray breasts and an elegant black plume and the females more brownish in color with the shorter plume and plain face a serious skulker of the Southern California area is the rent at its bouncing ball like callers often all that reveals its presence the rented has confused ornithologists for years and has been variously placed with the longtail tips the chickadees the Warblers and even with the babblers it is so unique that it is the only species in its genus highly interesting species of the San Diego area there ain't it there's a northern Harrier just flowing down from this perch actually it looks as though it's hunting something in this bush down at the bottom you can actually see and we're looking down trying to grab something out of that bush northern Harrier we've got a female Ana's hummingbird why don't nest here and if you look at that list you'll see how carefully designed it is the parents will use spiderweb and they'll actually camouflage it with little bits of lichen and little bits of plant material so that from the outside that nest is going to be very very camouflaged she looks as though she's sitting on eggs right now which hopefully will hatch in the next few days that's amazing this anna's hummingbird has flown off the nest who have just been watching her hawking insects and we thought she was on eggs she's actually good little babies here and she's just caught some insects and she's feeding him right now oh that is spectacular you can see the little baby's head she's feeding away Wow absolutely gorgeous as well as nesting female Ana's hummingbirds male Ana's hummingbirds are in full display during this time of the year with their unbelievable pink gorge it's not to be outdone the stunning male Ellen's hummingbirds are strutting their stuff to look James it's a black the spurting adventures episode is powered by an icon the world leader and optics since 1917 and sponsored in part by the San Diego Audubon Society and by Hobie Mirage Drive kayaks enjoy nature effortlessly we're about to head out to La Jolla Shores to go look for sea lions and also some harbor seals and some great birds I'm here with Ron Layne from fast lane he's gonna learn us some Hobie kayaks and we're gonna go do some kayaking so we've got some seriously big surf here today they forecast for about 12 to 14 foot waves for the whole day today so it's going to be pretty big but right here at the launch site looks like we can get out into the ocean we're then going to go around the higher point and go and look at some awesome marine life let's go birdie you know these Hobie kayaks on absolute dream for wildlife watching because of the Mirage drive over here you have your hands-free so you can use your binoculars to scope our wildlife and it's just such a sleek and stable operation on these Hobie kayaks the best way to enjoy nature on the water one of the highlights of a visit to San Diego is undoubtably the harbor seals and if you're here in February you might be lucky enough to see them actually giving birth here at a place called The Cove in La Jolla these little baby harbor seals around me some of them were born yesterday some of them possibly even born this morning and what's quite incredible is that these little babies within an hour of being born can dive and swim in these really really rough waves outside of the cove and the birthing area here they feed on the rich fatty milk of the mothers for up to three to four weeks and then they weaned and during that time they'll double their body size before they're able to head out and venture off on their own fantastic animals of the San Diego coastline the harbor seal couple of hundred yards from the harbor seal colony is a great colony of California sea lions one of the five species of sea lions worldwide you can see the dominant males behind me over here making their call announcing their territory and this is actually very similar to a nick system with birds where the males will announce their presence and the females will be moved through the territory and choose a male to mate with looking at those harbor seals and those California sea lions was amazing I'm now gonna head down underneath the surface of the water and these kelp forests to see what the marine life is like down under Oh spectacular watching all that wildlife on top of the water the sea lions the harbor seals and then being able to go down under the water and view those beautiful bright orange Garibaldi fish and then also those sevengill sharks San Diego marine life nothing beats San Diego County has an incredible diversity of gulls and here we are at Oceanside beach in northern San Diego County at a goal roost and there's a fantastic number of species yeah we've got Western goal we've got California goal we've got humans goal we've got Ringo goal and we've even got an unusual solitary Glaucus goal sitting right in the middle here can readily identify the glaucous gull by its pale coloration and it's a massive bird amongst these smaller goals here at the scholar East and we've got a hearing goal here as well and just flown in the edges of Bonaparte's goal as well it's surrounded by the goals we've had Royal turn we've had foresters turn there's also an elegant turn here fantastic diversity of gulls and terns here in northern San Diego just made our way further up the coast from Oceanside to Camp Pendleton here to look for more gulls and this is a very good spot for moogle which is a tiny gull very small girl with a nice yellow bull I'll just sitting down in the sand this birding adventures episode is powered by an icon the world leader and optics since 1917 and sponsored in part by the coastal Conservancy this birding from the edge segment is brought to you by Nikon manufacturers of the edge line of optics the San Diego Natural History Museum has one of the best collection of bird skins in all of North America we caught up with full unit who gave us a detailed demonstration on how to skin a Merlin Falcon this is burning from the edge before we head out to look for California net catches I've stopped in to meet with full unit of the San Diego Natural History Museum and he's going to show us his whole selection here of California and nut caches skins can you tell me the difference between male and female for yes here we have a male in breeding plumage with its black cap and here we have a female gray cap and if you can see very carefully the female has a brown back whereas the male has a pure gray one in the winter the males lose their black cap and become more similar to the females you have right now in early March they're in the process of growing in that black cap for the summer right so when we go up into the field we're going to be looking for a singing male possibly at the top of a bush with that nice mewing cat like call and we're hopefully going to get a nice black cap on these California nut catches that's great thanks so much for showing us everything full right really appreciate it let's go out and find some California net catches in the field this morning we're at a little patch of coastal sage scrub in the San Elijo Lagoon just north of San Diego I'm here with Jimmy Maclaurin and this coastal sage scrub is very endangered habitat and in these little pockets all around San Diego and it's in these pockets of scrub that you'll find the California and gnatcatcher today we've got this light drizzle coming down which is excellent news for this area because it's actually being in a bit of a drought for the last year so a little bit of rain and hopefully with a little bit of luck we'll get onto these map caches we can walk down the trail if we would like and just sit there and likely they're gonna start vocalizing I just heard one definitively call a few times the California gnatcatcher with its limited range and specific habitat requirements is a high conservation priority extensive development has fragmented the birds habitat in California leading it to be declared a threatened species in 1993 although this tiny bird might not look like much it certainly can pack a punch on the nose 'as of greedy developers so much so that several lawsuits against developers building on gnatcatcher habitat have been won by advocates of this wonderful Southern California species one of the things that separates a California not captured on its cousin the black-tailed nut catcher is the corn and you can hear it sounds almost like a plaintive meowing of a little kitten oh here he is right on top it's so amazing to see California net catch is still thriving in these little pockets of same scrub close to San Diego but June 90% of the sage scrub Landers of Southern California have been destroyed and developed so it's very very amazing to see this bird still clinging on in these little patches close to the city through the south of here the two subspecies of California net catcher still thrive in Baja California this coastal subspecies of California net capture found close to San Diego is almost like the canary in the coalmine of the same scrubland in this area and it's very very important that we protect this safe scrubland for generations to come because it is one of the most threatened habitats in all of North America if you ever needed proof as to the real and ever-present danger of extinction of a bird like the California gnatcatcher in North America it's right here at the Museum of Natural History in San Diego in my hand here is an ivory-billed woodpecker and of course over here on the straw of Carolina parakeets Birds which were once very common in North America and today they're gone forever so it's really important that we preserve the last remaining habitat of California nap catchers in Southern California on a station floor

Channel: A WILD Connection

Views: 12,211

Rating: 4.7593985 out of 5

Keywords: California, birds, birding, batv, birding adventures, james currie, california gnatcatcher, towhee, thrasher, harbor seals, california sea lions, san diego birding festival, San Diego (City/Town/Village), Birdwatching (Broadcast Genre)

Id: ZDxBZNjINNk

Length: 22min 0sec (1320 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 11 2014