Indigo Bunting, Savannah Sparrow and Common Buckeye at Loma Alta

One of my favorite spring walks in hereabouts is the Marin Open Space walk up Loma Alta, heading south from Big Rock, along Lucas Valley Road. The area has good shows of spring wildflowers (best today was a Calochortus leuteus (Gold Nuggets), and this time of year some popular breeding birds have returned, including Lazuli Bunting, Lark Sparrow, Grasshopper and Savannah Sparrows. Today I followed a bright Savannah Sparrow foraging along the roadside (it's a fire road trail). While photographing it I heard an insect like call that may have been a Grasshopper Sparrow, a species often seen here. The Savannah here shows an average amount of yellow above the eyes  for western birds.

Further along I spotted a Common Buckeye (butterfly) and watched it land in a moist sheltered area, perhaps to escape the 20-25 mph winds. Sad that this striking creature lives only about 10 days as an adult (Bob Stewart, "Common Butterflies of California"). The good news is that this little beauty is very common, and seen throughout the United States.

Near the "top", about a mile from the start, I looked for a recently reported Indigo Bunting,  in an area just north of the seep that drains onto the roadway. The reported sighting was near a blooming Elderberry tree on the downhill (left) side of the trail. While there I heard a bunting calling from the upslope, and located a male Indigo Bunting high in a bay tree. The wind was so strong, and the bird was so will "hidden" that I almost didn't venture a shot, but "nothing ventured ….".

The result is what we call a record shot, sufficient to document the event but not something to crow about. But it's not every year we get to see this more eastern bunting. The Indigo Bunting is listed as "rare and regular" in California, with even rarer documentation of attempts at breeding, sometimes with a Lazuli Bunting. The Lazuli is a more western bird, and in areas where they overlap in spring they sometimes interbreed, with most attempts proving unsuccessful.