Sepulveda Basin Birdwalk, October, 2018

Balboa Park rests in a low area of the San Fernando Valley, the empty lakebed and flood plain for the dammed Los Angeles River, controlled by Sepulveda Dam.  Most of the time, it's dry, except for the controlled drainage from the river trickling through.  

Thus it's the south San Fernando Valley's  locus for outdoor play, agriculture, and wildlife. The flattened lakebed displays chaparral and riparian vegetation, which catch stomach-turning amounts of litter from wind and stream overflow.   And for some years now, it's home to numbers of the city's homeless.  

Cottonwood tree is changing

Mounded, tangled, stained quilts tumble in micro-glens of shelter heaped with debris beneath the beautiful old cottonwoods.

When I bird watch alone there, I walk the north side of the park, near the lake, but avoid the south side, where most of the homeless linger, concerned with safety.

Today on the bird walk, conflicts about the presence of so many homeless in our wealthy city burn in my gut while I attend to the joy of seeing so many bird species.  I wish I were a better example of the charity St. Francis modeled. The birds themselves have done what the homeless do, survive as best they can.

We see a small flock of Canada geese, which live in the park near the golf course.  My husband once killed one with an errant drive, suffering pangs of guilt for months afterwards. They arise from the water as we approach, forming the v-formation beloved in countless wildlife painting.

Great and Snowy Egrets behind Sepulveda Dam, an "elegance of egrets"

I'm reminded of the amusing and odd collective nouns used, mostly in novels, for animals.  A group of geese on the ground is called a "gaggle", but in formation, a "skein". Most familiar, "a murdur of crows", I think.  Some of the terms are poignant, amusing. 

I marvel at the group of egrets, finding later that the English literati have not coined a term for them.  I begin to think:

"an elegance of egrets", "an elite" of egrets? An "attenuation" of egrets?    

Nutmeg Mannikin

I have never heard of this bird, as the guide identifies it.  That's because they are Asian, sold as pets, abandoned by owners grown weary of the responsibility of caring for them.  They are tiny and elusive, and flourish in the leathery tall bushes growing along the river.

Western Bluebird

A delight to see the bluebird this clearly in my binoculars, the best sighting ever.  Two males flew down onto the grass from a nearby tree, the sun shining on them so the blue color shown with an iridescence more beautiful than stained glass.

Say's Phoebe, illustration by David Sibley

Say's Phoebe - note crest and plumped body

Seeing a Says Phoebe supplied the name of a bird I'd seen a few months ago hiking in The  Pinnacles National Park. 

We also saw a Cassin's Kingbird, very similar to a Western Kingbird.  The Western has white tail feathers on each side of the tail, while a Cassin's has a white tail tip.

Cassin's Kingbird

Western Kingbird