We arrived at the site about 8:00 AM and began our survey, identifying individual shrikes by unique color band combinations on their legs. Today, in particular, I was headed out with my coworker, Loni Silver, to survey Wallrock Canyon for shrikes.

We spend 10 days on-island, and then take 4 days off. We are here on San Clemente Island as part of a multifaceted recovery effort for the San Clemente Loggerhead Shrike (Lanius ludovicianus mearnsi), a federally endangered endemic subspecies, and a long-term monitoring project for the federally threatened and endemic San Clemente Sage Sparrow (Amphispiza belli clementeae). A team of researchers, employees of the Institute for Wildlife Studies (IWS), contracted through the US Navy, was getting ready for another day in the field. Get a little taste of California birding at its best, and vicariously ‘tick’ this true Siberian MEGA-rarity! From the finder: Jethro Runcoĭecember 6th, 2011 started off just like every other morning I’ve spent in my first month here on San Clemente Island. Read on to enjoy these birders’ exciting account of the discovery and subsequent chase–in their words.

In the last 20 years Red-flanked Bluetail has expanded its breeding range westward, and records are increasing across Europe and especially in the UK. The only other record outside Alaska was of a juvenile male banded on Southeast Farallon Island, California, 1 November 1989. In North America it is a rare vagrant mainly in spring to western Alaska, especially the Aleutians, but in recent years there also have been a few fall records for the Pribilofs and St. On 6 December, birders working on San Clemente Island off southern California found and photographed a Red-flanked Bluetail ( Tarsiger cyanurus), only the second ever found in North America outside of Alaska! The Red-flanked Bluetail is an Old World species that breeds mainly in Siberia and winters in southeast Asia.

Bluetail hours