This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz by Elliotte Rusty Harold. Original Post: #419 Yellow-headed Blackbird at the UCI Arboretum Feed Title: Mokka mit Schlag Feed URL: http://www.elharo.com/blog/feed/atom/? Feed Description: Ranting and Raving Latest Java Buzz Posts Latest Java Buzz Posts by Elliotte Rusty Harold Latest Posts From Mokka mit Schlag

Sometimes you have to work for a bird, and sometimes it shows up in your backyard. In this case, it showed up in the backyard of my office, which happens to be an area of the UCI Arboretum that’s not open to the public. However, you can still stand on Fairchild Road and peer over the fence. That’s what Robert McNab did on May 7 as he recounted on the OrangeCountyBirding mailing list:

I was leaving work today (~ 3:45P) and decided to look at the blackbird flock in the high dry grass near my work that I had been glancing at all day. Turned out to be 36-50 YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRDS with nearly the same number of Mourning Doves (and Nutmeg Mannikins) feeding in a field adjacent to the UCI - closed marsh area west of Campus drive. The flock was inside the black cyclone fence area at the north end of the FDA building, 19701 Fairchild Drive, Irvine, CA. Fairchild is a connector road between MacArthur and Jamboree Roads at the Irvine/Newport Beach boundary near Upper Newport Bay. Many birds were on the fence itself nearest the marsh and farthest the street and should be visible to non-FDA employees if you look from Fairchild Drive. Parking may be a little tricky, but where there is a will, there is a way!.

I was out of town and didn’t get the message until Thursday evening, May 8, so I didn’t get out to lok for them until Monday, May 9. I checked in the morning before I went to work, but no blackbirds were to be found. I checked again in the afternoon after lunch. I walked from the FDA complex down to MacArthur and then down MacArthur pretty much all the way to San Joaquin Creek and back. I was about to give up but then just past the FDA complex in the other direction I spotted these two lovely ladies perched on a chain link fence:

I went back and found them again on Monday, but after that they did not reappear.

Besides, these two lifers, the site was surprisingly birdy. Here are some of the other species I saw just from walking partway around the edge:

• Great Blue Heron
• Snowy Egret
• Turkey Vulture
• Northern Harrier
• American Coot
• Forster’s Tern
• Mourning Dove
• Western Kingbird
• American Crow
• Tree Swallow
• Cliff Swallow
• Song Sparrow
• Red-winged Blackbird
• Yellow-headed Blackbird
• House Finch

I can only imagine what you could see inside if it were open to the public.