April each year might just be my busiest month as a naturalist, and this year is no different. Add to that, tax season and home repairs, and I am ready for a rest. April ramps up for bird migration season, my garden blooms, insects start to come out, and animal courtship is in full swing. One needs to get out often to see it all, particularly at the end of the month. In addition to my regular wetlands survey, there is the LA County Birdiest Weekend event, the iNaturalist City Nature Challenge, and the spring butterfly/dragonfly survey for PV/South Bay Audubon (thankfully I am not coordinating it this year, only participating). While I am not as active in these events as in prior years, I did get out to participate.

Additionally, I finished up a personal project and created a photo book from my Los Cerritos Wetlands bird surveys. A pdf of it is here, and a list of the species is here.

I had an interesting American Goldfinch in my yard. It was much paler than I have seen. I think it might be a bit leucistic, but I really don't know. I welcome comments on it.  A Lincoln's Sparrow visited for about a week. White-crowned Sparrows were abundant early in the month, but by the end of the month they were almost all gone. Only one straggler showed up on the 29th. A couple of Yellow-rumped Warblers were frequent visitors to my jelly feeders, but were gone mid-month to be replaced by Hooded Orioles. The Mockingbirds fiercely chase them away when they see them at the feeder.

I conducted an unscientific experiment with my jelly feeders. I bought a second one and filled it with raspberry jam and later added a rotting pear. I was curious whether one was favored over the other. I then switched the locations to see if maybe positional difference made a difference. Conclusion: The top feeder is preferred, and so is grape jelly. The mockingbird was partial to the rotting pear. I will stick with grape jelly and occasionally supplement with any fruit rotting from my kitchen.

My motion-triggered night cameras caught images of the comings and goings of skunk, opossum, racoon, and feral cat.

While butterflies were few in the PV/South Bay Audubon Butterfly/Dragonfly survey, Pacific Forktail damselflies were abundant. I had no idea about the variability of them until I did a little research. There is always something new to learn.

The iNaturalist City Nature Challenge is an annual global event. People photo-document nature and post to iNaturalist. Since this overlapped with the "America's Birdiest County" event, with the objective to find as many species in Los Angeles County as possible, I decided to focus on birds for the nature challenge. My photos were rapid-fire documentation shots, which I was able to post to iNaturalist, but I did get a few shots worthy of posting here.

I only had my small lens with me for the wetlands bird survey, so the photos aren't great. However, in one of them you can make out huge flocks of mixed species of swallows and Vaux's Swifts. I have never seen such large flocks before. Not only were they over the wetlands, but over the LA River and the San Gabriel River. These huge flocks have been very impressive.

Happy nature watching. I hope you find moments of happiness!
 

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Watch the slideshows or click on the links to look through at your own pace. Links open in a new tab.

Local Stuff:    https://kimssight.zenfolio.com/new_apr-2025

Los Cerritos Wetlands Survey:    https://kimssight.zenfolio.com/hellman_apr-2025