a web page by Don Roberson |
From about 1975 and the next 50 years thereafter, I would chase a potential California State bird anywhere. Most recent chases began at my home in Pacific Grove, in coastal central California. Now, as I get older, I will still chase most State birds, but the 1000-mile-drives are now fewer, and I've passed up a few California birds that were at the far reaches of the State. In my younger days, a long drive was not a barrier. Crescent City, next to Oregon on the northwest coast, is 950 miles distant (18 hours) roundtrip, but has had some great birds. We've successfully chased Bristle-thighed Curlew [see #12, below], and the State's first records of Steller's Eider (9 Feb 1983), Common Eider (9 July 2004), and Common Scoter (4 Feb 2015, photo bottom right). Eureka and Humboldt Bay vicinity are 1.5 hours south of Crescent City, but still about 775 miles (15 hours) roundtrip. I've done multiple chases there, including one to see a breeding-plumaged White-winged Tern (photos upper right). It is 900 miles (16 hours) roundtrip to the State's northeast border with Oregon, but we drove there for a Whooper Swan (Lower Klamath NWR on 30 Nov 1991), and a Common Crane (30 July 2020) in the vicinity. Imperial Dam on the Colorado River, next to Arizona, is 1210 miles (20 hours) roundtrip; my first Neotropical Cormorant was there (9 Sep 1981). I posted my personal photos of the birds successfully chased in this listing whenever I had taken a photo. When I didn't have photos, I've either used one from a different twitch (in a collage showing the actual site) or used photos taken by other observers (and give photo credits). I didn't have a telephoto lens for years but by the 1980s I got a cheap telephoto lens. Until 2005 my photos were on slide film; these were digitized. More recently, I have a better camera and lens. I haven't always ranked my chases by the comparative rarity of each bird. Obviously I'm obsessed with major rarities (e.g., I wrote about them in Roberson 1980, and chased after them in 1977 on a year list described in Roberson 1978). Yes, there are times that rarity alone is most important but there are many times when one "twitch" is just more memorable than another. Sometimes a bird just seems much more important after you've had a previously long-distance chase for the species and dipped! At other times idiosyncratic personal reasons might tip one to chose one bird rather than another. Such a list as this is also extremely myopic. Among the birds included are some quite scarce on a global scale (Bristle-thighed Curlew, Little Curlew, Ross's Gull) while others are widespread and abundant elsewhere (Northern Gannet, Fork-tailed Flycatcher, White Ibis). Such distinctions hardly matter when things are viewed through the lens of California only.
photo Prothonotary Warbler on 2 Oct 2022 in Pacific Grove © D. Roberson This is a gallery of my successful California twitches to see rare and interesting birds discovered by others. I have been fortunate to find some rarities on my own, so those rarities are not in this gallery. I have a another gallery on-line on the topic of my personal "Top 10" best finds.
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Chasing rarities — an essential element in the birding subculture — can be incredibly exhilarating and devastatingly depressing. Bill Oddie explained the entire British birding subculture in his hilarious 1980 book Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book. That world was divided into birders and "dudes" [folks who pretend to be birders but don't really know birds very well]. A fair number of both "birders" and "dudes" were within the separate subculture of the "twitchers." Oddie explained that "whilst to many birders the major thrill is to actually find a new or rare bird for themselves, the twitcher is more frequently to be found in pursuit of other people's birds. Whilst birding may be assumed to be a relatively solitary activity, it is not so for twitchers. Usually they hunt in packs." Twitchers are obsessed with the "tick" [seeing the bird you are chasing] and afraid of the "dip" [not seeing the bird you are chasing]. Bill Oddie continues: "Let's say it's Friday evening. The grapevine has spread the news of this weekend's available ticks, so all over the country groups of twitchers plan their weekend itinerary. The birds are pin-pointed on the map, and away the twitchers go; the distances traveled are truly phenomenal."
Finally, I note that which rare birds I value most has evolved over time. In the 1970s, I was dazzled by eastern warblers. In particular, I wanted to see a Cerulean Warbler, a Golden-winged Warbler, and a Prothonotary Warbler in California. Now, some 55 years later, I've seen two Ceruleans, six Golden-wings, and 16 Prothonotary (one shown at left). In the 1980s, I admired Mexican strays and then many of us focused on pelagics far offshore. In the late '80s, it was Siberian waders that drew a lot of acclaim. Now, in the 21st century, the vagrants that I value most tend to be migrant Siberian passerines. It is amazing to me that I've seen five Phylloscopus warblers, a couple of Old World muscicapids ("Old World flycatchers"), three Eurasian wagtails, and three Asian pipits, all of them setting down here in California, so far away from their ranges on other side of the Globe. Seven of these incredible long-distance vagrants are included in my "top 30" list.#1 This was the most satisfying chase of all time for me. The Woodcock was a first record for California. It was far away in a very remote site in the Mojave Desert at the other end of the State. It had been discovered on 3 Nov 1998 but only refound once in the next five days. Still, on what would be its 6th day, I started out on the nearly 1200 mile drive on the chase. photo 9 Nov 1988 © Don Roberson |
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# 2 Do you believe in Redemption? I do. Hallelujah. The most depressing chase of my life was a nearly 1200 mile effort for the State's first Ross's Gull, found by Guy McCaskie at Red Hill Marina on the Salton Sea, IMP, on Friday, 17 Nov 2006. I should have left when we heard about it Friday night but decided to wait a day to see it was 'chasable.' It was. So Saturday evening I took off, driving until exhausted at 1 a.m. out in Mojave, stopped for a couple hours of sleep, and was up pre-dawn to continue. I arrived at Red Hill at 8:45 a.m. — and learned that the gull flown away at 6:15 a.m. A hundred birders were there looking for it all day, but it was gone. The discouraging event became my punch line in response to Luke Cole's chasing poem [see next page]. photo 12 Jan 2017 © Don Roberson |
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# 3 This first California record was found on 28 Aug 1988 by visiting birders from Maryland. I heard about it several days later in Denpasar, Indonesia, where I was near the end of a tour of Java and Bali with Ben King. I was able to arrange a flight home a day earlier than scheduled in hopes of chasing it. I arrived mid-day to a beach full of dogs and children, but then the Terek appeared. As it turned out the haste was unnecessary as the Terek stayed until 23 Sep, and I saw it several more times. [I did arrive home in time to see a Hudsonian Godwit found the day before, but dipped on a Long-toed Stint present at Salinas WTP on 29 Aug-2 Sep 1988.] This Terek Sandpiper remains (in July 2026) the only State record. photo 6 Sep 1988 © Don Roberson |
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# 4 Paul Lehman found this first North American record on the evening of 16 Sep 1984; he had been chasing a Curlew Sandpiper (and saw that as well). I was among 40 or more who were looking for the curlew the next morning across the Santa Maria bottoms. Chris Spooner, Steve Wilson, and I refound it, about a mile from its original location, at 1 p.m. [my flight shot of it is at upper left]. This proved to be the Mahoney property that it frequented for many days thereafter; see Schram (1985) for an account of the "event" and Lehman & Dunn (1985) for more on the record — a first for the Western Hemisphere. photo 17 Sep 1984 (upper left) & 9 Sep 1994 (lower left) © D. Roberson |
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# 5 Two Old World Cuculus cuckoos are extremely rare vagrants to Alaska. Both Common Cuckoo and Oriental Cuckoo are long-distance migrants and "could" reach California if one went the "wrong-way," but I had never anticipated one would be chasable. They are just too rare, too shy, too elusive, and damn hard to separate if not seen well. Yet on 28 Sep 2012 we got word that our good friend Lois Goldfrank, while leading a Santa Cruz Bird Club field trip, had seen an Old World cuckoo in Watsonville, just north of the Monterey County border! photo 28 Sep 2012 © Don Roberson |
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# 6 Little did I know when I answered my office phone on the morning of 7 June 1985 that it would change my life. On the line was my friend Alan Baldridge, librarian at Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station, straddling the border between Monterey and Pacific Grove. "I've just seen a Swallow-tailed Gull," said Alan. "That's obviously an escapee," said I, "but I'll come look at it." And so I did. It was a gorgeous adult. I helped arrange access for birders over its short stay, shepherding folks to and from the Hopkins' site, and on its final day got the word to all that the gull was at the Moss Landing gull roost. photo 7 June 1985 © Peter LaTourrette |
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# 7 Traditionally, this long-distance migrant was called Siberian Flycatcher (Muscicapa sibirica), breeding in Siberia and migrating to winter in southeast Asia and Greater Sundas. More recently, taxonomists have lumped it with a Himalayan breeding population and changed the name to a ho-hum "Dark-sided" Flycatcher. It was in my 1980 book about vagrants (Rare Birds of the West Coast) as "Sooty Flycatcher" from one record from the Aleutians in Sep 1977. By any name, I never expected to see one in California. Yet, there I was mid-September in the Google parking lot, searching for a bluebird-sized muscicapid ("Old Word flycatcher" family). photo 18 Sep 2025 © Don Roberson |
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# 8 My 1980 book Rare Birds of the West Coast noted one record of this species on Shemya I., Alaska, in Oct 1978. I wrote: "On geographic grounds the Wood Warbler seems to the most incredible passerine vagrant ever to occur on the West Coast. Breeding on the opposite side of the globe and wintering directly to the south, there was little to suggest this bird would ever occur here. The most likely explanation of its appearance would seem to be that a bird migrated the exact opposite direction as expected and may have flown over the Pole to Alaska. This 'wrong-way' (or 180°) misorientation is known ... but the occurrence of Wood Warbler would seem to be among the most spectacular examples. If Wood Warbler can occur, then it would seem that any migratory Eurasian bird could occur on the West Coast." photo 16 Oct 2022 © Don Roberson |
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# 9 Any Old World warbler is a major rarity in California. At the time of this bird, two Phylloscopus warblers — Arctic P. borealis and Dusky P. fuscatus — had reached the State over the past 50 years, and I'd been able to see both species. A diversity of Old Warblers in Alaska might be anticipated, but I'll admit that the chance of seeing a Yellow-browed Warbler P. inornatus in California was not on my radar. But such word came on Thursday night, 24 Oct, that Todd Easterla had found one in Alpine County. Alpine County! Who could have ever guessed. photo 25 Oct 2019 © Don Roberson |
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# 10 This first State record was found on Sunday afternoon of 9 Oct 1988 by David Sibley, Jeff Kingery, and Julian Hough. They missed attending a party being thrown by the late, great Margaret Moody for esteemed biologists, and to which I had been invited. We heard rumors that the bird had been flushed by hunters, so we all assumed it was long gone. In any event, many of us left at 10 p.m. that night on a long-scheduled 24-hour boat trip from Monterey to the Davidson Seamount. But the weather as rough off Pt. Pinos and the trip was canceled; we returned to Monterey harbor by dawn. This was fortunate because it allowed many of us to chase — and see — this Gray Wagtail. It remains to this date (2026) the only California record of this Siberian vagrant. collage of photos taken 10 Oct 1988 © D. Roberson |
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... AND THE NEXT TEN ....
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#11 A first-fall Baird's Sparrow found 5 Oct 1981 on Pt. Loma by Doug Willick was seen by multitudes over next five days. I flew down from San Francisco, was picked up by Elizabeth Copper at San Diego airport, and we saw the bird in the Pt. Loma cemetery with Richard Webster, Herb & Olga Clarke, Larry Sansone, and others. In contrast to its behavior on its breeding grounds, this grassland sparrow was not very shy. It was always on the cemetery grass, and at one point it hopped onto Olga Clarke's shoe! I took a few photos on slide film. This was the first record on mainland California. Even now (2026), there are only 4 State records, and the other 3 were on the Farallones. photo 6 Oct 1981 © D. Roberson |
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# 12
photo 16 May 1998 © D. Roberson |
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#13 Swallow-tailed Kite is a striking and graceful aerialist, catching insects on the wing, and enticing smiles from human observers throughout its range from southeastern U.S. southward through the Neotropics to Argentina. It is so glamorous that I had never thought I would see one in California. Its few occurrences were brief and scattered, mostly seen in flight by a lucky birder but not available to most of us. Some of the kites traveled far distances, including one in April 2024 that was seen briefly in Ventura Co., Marin Co., and the Farallones! photo 11 June 2025 © D. Roberson |
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#14 While researching Rare Birds of the West Coast in the late 1970s, I visited the Museum of Vertebrate Biology at U.C. Berkeley to look at the specimen taken at Barrow, Alaska, in June 1952, that added Willow Warbler to the AOU Checklist. I noted wingbars and took my concerns to Dr. Pitelka, who had published the record. We had the specimen re-reviewed by experts; it was an Arctic Warbler, which breeds in Alaska. We refuted the propriety of Willow Warbler on the AOU checklist in Roberson & Pitelka (1983). Most birders would love to add a bird to the North American checklist, but I initiated the removal of a species from that list ... and was happy to do it. photo 20 Oct 2022 © D. Roberson |
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#15 What birder would not be keen to see a bird named "Red-flanked Bluetail?" What if it bred on the Siberian taiga and migrated to southeast Asia? What if it turned up in the New World? Would that not be everyone's *MEGA* (to use a British-ism now favored in eastern US)? In 1980, I published Rare Birds of the West Coast, a book about vagrants. There were no New World records but it was on a color plate of "potential" West Coast rarities. In June 1982, one was on Attu I., Alaska. In Nov 1989, one was banded on SE Farallon I., Calif., and another seen in 2011 on San Clemente Island. photo 25 Jan 2023 © D. Roberson |
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# 16 This juv Dotterel was found 6 Sep 1986 at Pt. Reyes by Durrell Kappan and David Holway. On hearing the news through the birding grapevine, Bob Tintle, Brian Weed, and I left Pacific Grove at 3 a.m. to make it there by 7. We enjoyed the Fellini-esque experience of the overcast gray dawn and hordes of silently-moving throngs spread out across the barren dry grasslands until the lovely and distinctive Eurasian Dotterel was found. photo 7 Sep 1986 © D. Roberson |
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#17 This Blue-footed Booby at the Salton Sea was my first real chase. I chose this thousand-mile drive among my "Top 20" bird chases because it was both an adventure (first time seeing the Salton Sea!) and a success. It fueled my desire to do more chases, providing more successes, and a totally new lifestyle. photo 6 Nov 1971 © D. Roberson |
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# 18 Joe Morlan once told me that what he liked about looking for rare vagrant birds was the fact one could contemplate the odd circumstances of life that put that bird, so far from its usual haunts, and you at the same place at the same time. Among the birds chased and on this page are those from Siberia, from remote Alaska, from northeastern North America, from the Galapagos and from tropic oceans. This first-year Fork-tailed Flycatcher appeared to be of the nominate race savana, and was thus from South America. Birds from that population have reached eastern North America more than 70 times, but this was the first to have reached California (see McCaskie & Patten 1994). photo 5 Sep 1992 © Don Roberson |
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# 19 Seven years after we "waded through the slime until the ibis was found" (see #24, below), I was back at the north end of Salton Sea. By then I had become acquainted with the "inventor of the field guide," Roger Tory Peterson. Roger was then working on a rewrite of his western Field Guide, and we'd arranged to meet and stay at 29 Palms, in southern California, for several days. The plan was to look at migrant Empidonax flycatchers at nearby Morongo Valley so Roger could try out new field characters. However, we learned Dale Delaney and Arnold Small had found California's first Spotted Redshank, in alternate plumage, on 30 April. photo collage 3-4 May 1983 © D. Roberson |
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#20 This chase makes the list because I thought a Purple Sandpiper would never reach California. It migrates along the Atlantic — how is it supposed to get to here? And if it did, who would identify it? We'd been in Humboldt Co., seeing Brown Shrike, in Jan 2011 when we got word of a putative Purple Sandpiper among 4 Rock Sandpipers at a Humboldt Bay jetty. We noted variation in all five sandpipers, and one had purple gloss to inner webs of some scaps — still it didn't seem right. In the end everyone considered it a variant Rock. photo 7 Apr 2016 © D. Roberson |
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... AND THE NEXT TEN ....
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# 21 A male Smew is in the running for the most lovely waterfowl on earth, so when this Old World duck appears on the wrong continent, well, what a find! As this is written (2026) there are only 3 records for California, all males. The first was found at Foster City on 19 Dec 1981. I was among the throngs to see it the next day. Alas, it was viewed from a long distance through scopes. It returned for two more winters but the views were far, it would not have made this "top 30" list had it not been for efforts to see the next two State
records. photo 28 Jan 2007 © D. Roberson |
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# 22 Sometimes one has to be lucky to be involved in a chase. The State's first two Wood Sandpipers were, respectively, at a restricted Naval Weapons base and a restricted Army base. California's first chaseable Oriental Turtle-Dove stayed 3 weeks — but on private property. I was not among the few to be invited. photo 28 July 2008 © D. Roberson |
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#23 The Tijuana River mouth is next to the Mexican border, so this was a very long twitch. It was a first California record and remains the only record to this day. We were on a North Carolina pelagic trip when this Peru Current gull was found. We heard about it on our return on Sunday, 10 Aug, but it was imperative to return to work on Monday. By Tuesday the gull had disappeared. It reappeared on 20 Aug, so we drove down on 21 Aug and saw it the next morning. We spent time with it, observing behaviors: "The gull daintily paddled against the current, watching the shallows, and once a clam was located would 'dive' for them (by) tipping up and diving downward with legs kicking. Quite a performance for a gull! When it grabbed a big clam in its bill, it flew off toward dry ground, mounted up into the sky to drop the clam from a height, and continued this comical act until it either broke the clam or lost interest in the particular clam at issue ..." This was a fun gull to watch. photos 22 Aug 1997 © D. Roberson |
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# 24 Kimball Garrett is a famed and creative southern California expert. Using the peccadilloes of the '70s birding subculture as backdrop, his poems, haikus, and song lyrics are incomparable. My favorite is his rewrite of the Eagles' Hotel California, which became Birders' California. He tells tales from the 1970s — "Plenty of room in birders' California; any time of day, you can list away" —including "wading through the slime until the ibis was found." That was a White Ibis at the north end of the Salton Sea in 1976. photo collage © D. Roberson [the White Ibis shown was 5 Oct 2012 in SBA] |
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#25 This unexpected Old World bunting with one of the few times that I've flown to chase a rare bird (the other flights are enumerated in comments re Baird's Sparrow, #11 above). Rita and I drove to San Francisco, flew to San Diego, rented a car, and were at Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery by 11:30. The bunting had been discovered by Guy McCaskie on 21 October. It was with a Chipping Sparrow flock, along with an imm Indigo Bunting and a Clay-colored Sparrow. The flock was skittish, and while we had decent views of the Little Bunting, my photo attempts were very distant and exceedingly poor. I did a sketch from my notes, finishing with color pencils at home, to attach to my CBRC submission (my typed CBRC report, with sketch enlarged, and my bad photo are combined in my collage that also features a look at Pt. Loma from the south). Pt. Loma is among the State's top vagrant trap — I chased and saw a Baird's Sparrow there 10 years earlier (6 Oct 1981) and saw my only Gray-cheeked Thrush for California there as well (7 Oct 1987) during another 946 mile roundtrip drive. photo collage [all photos, sketch, and typed report] © D. Roberson |
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#26 There are three records of Olive-backed Pipit in California (as of July 2026). The first was on SE Farallon I. in Sep 1998, so only biologists on the island saw it. The second one turned up in York Regional Park, Anaheim, ORA, in Nov 2014, and stayed 12 days (1-11 Nov 2014). "Everyone" who was "anybody" saw that rarity, except me. I was camping in the high Himalayas with an expedition that was hoping to see a Snow Leopard. We failed. So for over a decade, I was missing a key vagrant because of world travel (other species lost due to my travels include Baikal Teal and Long-toed Stint). photo 26 Oct 2025 © Don Roberson |
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# 27 On 25 Apr 2012, researchers on SE Farallon Island spotted and photographed a Northern Gannet in flight. Northern Gannet is a common seabird of the North Atlantic but until now it had never been reported in the Pacific. Global warming had resulted in a reduction in pack ice and and an increase in open water all the way across the top of the continent. This gannet probably followed the old "northwest passage" and ended up in the wrong ocean. collage from photos 12 Sep 2012 © D. Roberson |
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# 28 I've lived in the Monterey Bay area for almost 50 years. I've said that my "most likely" new county bird should be Magnificent Frigatebird. At about 3:30 p.m. on 2 Nov 2016 I heard about a frigatebird over Monterey harbor but heading north. I knew that traffic would make it impossible to chase in that direction, so I drove to Otter Pt. to scope northeast. The moment I arrived a text came that the frigatebird was at the Pt. Pinos seawatch, just a couple of blocks to the west. I drove there as fast as I could and found Skye Haas waving his arms for me to stop. He pointed to the west, stating that the frigatebird was still in view surrounded by a cloud of gulls. And so it was! But the view was backlit so I jumped back in the car to chase it as it flew around the Point. On reaching the Point I saw Mark Kudrav, stopped and asked if he wanted to chase it, and he did. Remarkably, although we searched extensively, the frigate and the gulls had disappeared! In retrospect they must have continued straight out to sea. photo 2 Nov 2016 © Skye Haas |
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#29 When I started "hardcore'"State birding in 1973, I 'needed' all the rarities. These 3 whistling-ducks represented the 5th-7th records for California; they were present 15 Oct-4 Nov 1973. For me, though, the trip was memorable as it was my first long-distance successful chase with other knowledgeable State birders. The Blue-footed Booby chase (above, at #17) was undertaken by low-key birdwatchers out for a good time, and, like me, just learning their birds. photo 20 Oct 1973 [2 of 3 seen, with 2 Fulvous Whistling-Duck] © J. Van Remsen |
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#30 The "Patagonia rest stop effect," named for a rest stop in southeast Arizona, occurs when an influx of birders, chasing a rarity found at a site, discover other rare birds there. Pt. Pinos is world famous as it IS a great spot for birds but this specific vagrant was due to the Patagonia effect [see more on "Patagonia rest stop effect" in Kaufman (2006) at pp. 196–197]. photo 13 Jan 2017 [among Heermann's Gulls] © D. Roberson
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This listing does not include memorable chases for first State records of Blue-throated Hummingbird in Tulare County (18 Jan 1978) or Xantus's Hummingbird at a Ventura feeder (31 Jan 1988) or Gray Hawk in Carpinteria, SBA (30 Nov 2012). It does not include a chase in Jan 2018 to Orange County for Tropical Parula. Nor are chases included for two different Brown Shrikes, plus another Asiatic shrike that turned out to be a remarkable hybrid; or two different White-winged Terns or two different Purple Gallinules; or a male Ruby-throated Hummingbird or a Red-headed Woodpecker, among many more. |
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CREDITS related to successful chases
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LITERATURE CITED
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