Date: 9/5/26 10:21 pm From: Naresh Satyan via groups.io <naresh.satyan...> Subject: [LACoBirds] Birds at the San Gabriel spreading grounds
Hi all,
This afternoon (9/5), I stopped by the San Gabriel spreading basins hoping to look at some gulls, but the birding overall was very good and I thought it was worth posting a report to the listserv.
Understanding the status of water and vegetation levels at the spreading basins and the adjacent San Gabriel river is beyond my capabilities. Conditions change from day to day depending on weather and the whims of LA Public Works. But it is now excellent.
The large spreading basin south of Mines is full, and water is just beginning to flow from this basin to the southernmost basin. - This basin had 1000 Western Gulls today, including at least 200 juveniles. It is a great place to study juvenile Western Gulls. I looked fairly carefully through the flock and the only other gulls I found were 9 California Gulls. Interestingly, 7 of the 9 birds were juveniles that all looked different from each other (including one bird that Merlin was adamant was a Western Gull when I was uploading photos to eBird). - The other highlight in this basin is a lone (mulberry?) tree that now hosts a large nesting colony of Neotropic Cormorants. The birds were displaying, aggressively chasing each other, courting and copulating with grunting vocalizations, building nests, and at least two nests seemed to have birds in incubating postures. I counted 38 Neotropic Cormorants in the tree (+ another 10 cormorants that were likely Neotropics but I couldn't see well), and 12 birds elsewhere in the basin and the adjacent river. I'm reporting the total as 44 birds, though I think the actual number of Neotropic Cormorants in the area exceeded 50-60 birds. This is an incredible increase in numbers of this species in LA county. Perhaps people can get a more accurate count over the next few days.
The basin immediately north of Mines was dry, but there was a tiny puddle at the north end of this basin that hosted 3 Killdeer, 1 Western Sandpiper, 4 Least Sandpipers and 2 Solitary Sandpipers.
The river looks excellent, with miles of weedy habitat that should have seedeaters (but impossible to see), shallow water, mudflats, and shallow shrinking pools that concentrate fish and attract fish-eating birds. These included about 100 each of Snowy and Great Egrets in the river and 3 Ospreys hunting while calling. The most interesting shorebird on the river was a juvenile Short-billed Dowitcher.
If you made it this far and are interested in birding along a stretch of the San Gabriel river on Sunday Sep 27 as part of a survey of birds on the river this fall, please email me off-list :). The birding away from the spreading basins is usually not as glamorous, but always interesting.
