Date: 1/22/26 11:45 am From: <lehman.paul...> via groups.io <lehman.paul...> Subject: [SanDiegoRegionBirding] second half of winter rarities and rarity searching
We've now entered late January. Still a solid 6 weeks of winter birding remaining. There seems to always be a rush of birding activity with the New Year that lasts a few weeks and then perhaps wanes, which is my impression starting the past week or so. Plenty of folks out chasing rarity-stakeout year birds! But then what, after most of the stakeouts are gotten? Or perhaps folks are checking the same spots time after time after time at this time of year but only finding a very limited number of new birds--which is to be expected in mid- and late winter given the low turnover rates.
I know I sound like a broken record, but I wish to encourage those wondering what to do is that there is simply a massive amount of winter habitat for interesting landbirds to hide. Coastally, where most of the rarities are, there is enough unexplored habitat from around I-15 to the coast that half the birders in San Diego could be out exploring this huge area almost every day and we wouldn't exhaust the supply even by the end of February. Heck, one could almost say the same thing just for the area near I-5 westward to the coast. Now, a bunch of this habitat is found in residential areas, and I know that lots of folks don't like birding those sorts of areas. But there are still plenty of small parks and other open spaces. And it WOULD be worth re-checking good landbird spots that haven't been visited since the Christmas Count season, given that some birds can move around locally during the winter in response to changing flowering/fruiting regimes, etc. All of the above is true for the entire coastal region of San Diego County, from the Orange County line to the Mexican border.
As an example, in addition to looking at some of the winter stakeouts lately, just yesterday I checked some tipu parking lots in Mira Mesa and had a new Nashville Warbler; and today I checked an underbirded stretch of the San Diego River near the Mission and had a White-throated Sparrow, and a totally non-birded drainage flowing into the San Diego River in Mission Valley and had new Tennessee, Nashville, and Yellow Warblers. Just examples from the past two days.
Heck, even WELL inland regions will turn stuff up, although not at the rate of coastal areas. Examples for mid-winter: just in the past few days a new American Redstart was in Escondido and a very rare "Red" Fox Sparrow was near Julian.
The bottom line: explore, explore, explore.
--Paul Lehman, San Diego
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