ADDITIONAL BIRD SIGHTINGS IN NORTHERN LOS ANGELES COUNTY, CALIFORNIA

Earlier this year, I posted a blog on aquatic birds sighted north of Los Angeles (Castaic Lake and Santa Clarita areas, which are only six miles apart from one another]. Since then, some new sightings and images concerning both aquatic and a few non-aquatic birds in both areas have become available to me, mostly via my well-informed source, who lives in the Castaic area.

      AQUATIC BIRDS (CASTAIC LAKE AREA)

CANADA GOOSE

Branta canadensis

Most of the Canadian Geese that were present in this area in January, 2025, have now migrated away [this is definitely true for the Snow Geese and most of the coots]. However, a few Canadian Geese remain, and now include some immature Canadian Geese. An image of one family that remained in the Castaic Lake area is shown below. I have also spotted some other immature Canadian Geese in the Santa Clarita area, a few miles south of Castaic Lake. 

       Young Canadian Geese and their "mom" at Castaic Lake.

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WESTERN GREB (The Swan-Necked Grebe) Aechmophorus occidentalis

About 3 pounds in size.

This aquatic bird has a distinctive curved neck, with crisp black and white colorations sharply defined. They rarely walk (= an awkward gait) on land, but they can gracefully “run” on water. They have lobed toes to propel them underwater (note: ducks have webbed feet). Their eyes are red. These birds are almost always in the water, where dive (for long periods of time) for prey or rest on the surface. They build floating nests (Wikipedia, 2025). 

                                  Western Greb at Castaic Lake.

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COMMON MERGANSER

Mergus merganser

About 3 pounds in size.

This aquatic bird is duck-like that lives in rivers and lakes. The male has black head, red bill, and mostly white body (possibly with some grayish patches); the female has red head, red bill, white chin, and white to gray body (Wikipedia, 2025). Its common name is “sea duck.”

 Western Grebs at Castaic Lake.

NON-AQUATIC BIRDS (CASTAIC LAKE AREA) 

RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD

Agelaius phoenixes

8.5 inches length

This species lives all over the USA except near the Canadian border. 

The red epaulets are displayed in courtship from Fall until nesting begins.These birds live in large flocks. They spend the nights in communal roosts and fly out together in search of food. Their main habitats are marshes and pastures. They also frequent parks in rural areas. The male is black with yellow-edged epaulets, which may be hidden when the bird is perched. The female is streaked brown with a faint red tinge on the shoulders and a pink throat. The epaulets of the California form lack the yellow edges. These birds are among the first to fly north. They will attack hawks and crows. The nesting season of these birds is March through July. (Audubon bird book, 1999, p. 130). I recently spotted two of these birds in a front yard in Santa Clarita, California), six miles from Castaic Lake.

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                                 male                          female

BLACK-HEADED GROSBEAK

Pheuciticus melanocephalus

7-8.5 inches long

Their nest is a loose and flimsy structure of plant rootlets and twigs built in thick foliage (including trees or shrubs that are 4 to 25 feet above the ground. This bird eats seeds and insects. (Audubon bird book, 1999, p. 119 (in part); and Reader's Digest "North American Wildlife" (p.149). 

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WESTERN TANAGER

Piranga ludoviciana

7 inches long

Orange head, yellow chest, black back and wings. Male has brighter colors than female. Male’s head is red during the breeding season but disappears in the fall. Eats insects, berries, and other fruit. Its nest consists of twigs, roots, and moss. Lives in western USA and south-west Canada. Can live at elevations up to 10,000 feet.

(Audubon bird book, 1999, p. 117).

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COOPERS HAWK

Astur cooperii

Medium-sized hawk.

This hawk has a black cap, dark gray upper wings with scattered black spot, and white legs with back spots. Upper surface of wings brown; the underneath surface grayish white with black streaks and spots. This hawk is native to North America and found from southern Canada to Mexico (Wikipedia, 2025). They nest in tall trees with extensive canopy cover.

A medium-sized hawk (they weigh about a pound and the male is smaller than the female). This hawk is known for its stealthy hunting and preference for small to medium-sized bird prey. Crows do not like them! These hawks are often seen in suburban areas and around bird feeders. They can also feed on snakes, squirrels, and even chickens. These hawks have a varied collection of bird calls that is one of the largest for any raptor (Wikipedia, 2025).

NON-AQUATIC BIRDS (Santa Clarita)

MOURNING DOVE

Zenaida mercury

12 inches long.

This is the smallest in size of the three dove species that live in the Los Angeles, California area. This species is primarily a seed eater and not an insect eater. It especially likes sunflower seeds.  is a migratory game bird. As I researched it, I was astonished to learn that this peaceful animal (which is a symbol of peace, love, and hope) is the most frequently hunted game bird in North America. 

It has a small head and a slender tail. It flies “bullet fast” and usually can live 2 to 4 years although some in captivity can live up to 30 years. It is most active in the early morning and late afternoon. They are related to pigeons, which are a type of dove. Unlike pigeons, mourning doves are illegal to own.

Front and back views of same specimen (about 8 inches in length) of mourning dove in my garden in Santa Clarita, northern Los Angeles County, Southern California.

REFERENCES

Audubon backyard birdwatcher, birdfeeders and bird gardens. 1999. Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA, 381 pp. 

Horsfall, R. B. and C. E. 1928. Birds of the Pacific Coast. Nature Magazine, Washington. Archive.org  [the text is about 700 pp. long and has detailed sketches [some in color] of nearly every known bird species from this region]. This relatively unknown reference is easily available (you can view it for free at archive.org). For a small donation (the amount is up to you), this book can be downloaded. R.B. Horsfall was a renowned American wildlife illustrator of wildlife and also some fossils (see one my forthcoming post about earliest rhinos of California). 

Reader's Digest North American Wildlife 1982. Pleasantville, New York, 1982, 559 pp. of text.

Wikipedia. 2025.

YIKES, LIZARDS IN MY YARD!

In recent months, I have published numerous blog posts concerning a diverse assortment of animals and plants that either live in, or visit, my yard. This current blog post focuses on a lizard species that I see more and more, as the weather warms up. It is the “Common side-blotched lizard,” a lizard found throughout southern California (including the deserts). The breeding season of this lizard is from April to June. They are fast-moving reptiles, unless they are sunning themselves on flat  surfaces. These animals are usually about 5 to 7 inches long, and they can vary in their markings and coloration (e.g., from being spotted, striped, blotched, or solid brown to gray brown). To add to the difficulty in trying to identify them, there are also male and female morphological variants (morphs).

Their classification is the following (from Wikipedia).
 

Kingdom Animalia

Phylum Chordata

Class Reptilia

Order Squamata

Suborder Iguania

Family Phrynosomatidae

Genus Uta

Species stansburiana {there can be several variants)

Figure 1: Lizard (about 7 inches long) "catching some rays." 

Figure 2. Another lizard (about 5 inches in length); this one shows a white band at the bottom of its body (the band is helpful in identifying the species).

For more details, in addition to Wikipedia, see the following URL, see:

https://www.californiaherps.com/identification/lizards/common/lizards.html 

 VINTAGE ELECTRIC POLE HEMIGRAY INSULATORS

These thick-glass insulators were used for telegraph and telephone utility lines in the United States from 1815 until the 1960’s, and their “heyday”use was from 1875 to 1930. The ones shown below were used in Southern California.

Based on the embossed information on the two insulators shown below, they were manufactured by the Hemigray Company, which started making insulators as early as the 1840s. The heyday of production was 1875 to 1930, but they eventually stopped making them in the 1960s. These insulators also have embossed numbers on them. The first number is a mold number, and the second number indicates the year they were manufactured. One of the insulators was made in 1940 and the other in 1942.

These insulators can be collector’s item (see the Internet), and the faintly colored ones (like the ones shown here) “go for”about $10 or so. The more vividly colored (e.g., aqua, green, purple) the insulators are, the more they are worth. The ones shown here are nearly colorless, and they are not worth that much; nevertheless, they are indicative of the past, and that is always interesting

Figure 1. 1940 insulator. Insulator is 4 inches tall, 3.75 inches diameter.

Figure 2. 1942 insulator with copper wire holder. Insular is the same size as the one illustrated above. 

KOI FISH

The name “koi” is an informal name for colored variants of domesticated carp fish kept for ornamental purposes. Typically these fish, which are cold-water, are kept in outdoor “koi ponds,” if it does not get too cold for them. These fish belong to genus Cyprinus, which is in the family Cyprinidae. Historically, koi were produced by artificial selection, primarily from black carp, which inhabit lakes, ponds, and rivers in Japan. Carps are very hardy fish and commonly used as a symbol of luck.

Carp fish comprise a large group of cold-water-fish species originally native to central Europe and Asia. There are about 100 varieties today. 

They are bottom feeders and can live for 100 to 200 years [note: fish scales are used to determine the age]. Their fossil record is Miocene to Recent (Wikipedia).

Two of examples of the numerous color variants of koi fish in a water-lily tank at a commercial nursery in northern Los Angeles County, southern Califoria. The orange/black/white individual is about 6 inches long.

More examples of color variants of koi fish (and also some water lilies) in the same small tank mentioned above. 

WHAT’S OUR REACH?

If you started to travel, via a spaceship moving at 25,000 miles per hour, to Pluto when you were 25-years old, it would take you about 22 years to reach Pluto, and another 22 years to return. You would be 69 years old when you got back: a near-lifetime of travel, mostly surrounded by darkness. Most likely, this is not what you expected.

Only light, or other waves that have no intrinsic mass, can move at the speed of light. As an object (like a spaceship) approaches the speed of light, its mass rises ever more quickly, so that it takes more and more energy to speed it up further. It can never reach the speed of light, because by then, its mass would have become infinite, and by the equivalence of mass and energy (E = mc squared), it would have taken an infinite amount of energy to get there.

Thus, the science-fiction-generated fantasy (so prevalent in movies!) of humans traveling at the speed of light, from galaxy to galaxy, is not to happen!

THE VASTNESS OF SPACE

The universe consists of a million trillion trillion cubic light years and growing each second. [One cubic light year is enough to encompass our solar system]. 

Suppose you could select anyone of the cubic light years in space to explore, how would it look? 99 times out of a 100, you would find a pristine vacuum embedded in total blackness. Absolutely nothing would be visible to the unaided eye. The universe is almost entirely empty space. Galaxies, stars, and planets are scattered here and there in a lumpy way, not in a uniform way. 

Source: A manual written by me [circa 2010], for my college-level, introductory course for “Earth and Space Science for Liberal Studies Majors.” I taught this course for many years.

CORUNDUM: “IT’S ALL ABOUT THE COLOR”

The mineral corundum consists of crystalline aluminum oxide. Its hardness is 9, which is next to diamond at hardness of 10. Corundum’s crystals are hexagonal (six-sided), and they also leave no streak on a mineralogical “streak-plate test.” 

To most  people corundum is, indeed, “all about the color.” The two main varieties of corundum are: rubies, if the crystals are pink to blood-red corundum, and sapphires, if they are blue. Actually, the latter exhibits a wide range of colors depending on composition.

Pure corundum is colorless, but tiny amounts of impurities in corundum results in other colors: e.g., yellow to yellow brown, green, purple to violet [e.g., like some of those shown below], and even pure white.

Corundum occurs in metamorphic and igneous rocks, as well as alluvial deposits. It is found in many countries, especially Burma, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and India; as well as in North Carolina and Montana.

The pieces of rock containing purple to violet crystals shown here were found in a metamorphic muscovite schist in the San Gabriel Mountains, southern California. Some small rock samples were given to me by one of my students and, later, some other samples were given to me by one of my colleagues.

Figure 1. A piece (3.5 cm wide and 3 cm high) of muscovite schist containing small crystals of violet corundum. A weathered surface of this piece of rock is stained by iron and looks rusty to blackish. The crystals in this rock show parallel  alignment, caused by forces at the time of their origin.

Figure 2. Another piece of rock showing crystals of violet corundum.

                Figure 3. Several crystals of violet corundum in rock matrix.       

 Fig. 4. End and side views of extracted individual crystals of violet corundum. Crystal on the right is about 3 mm in length.

CACTI: GREAT DIVERSITY, BUT NO FOSSILS

The word “cacti” is the plural form of cactus. All cacti are spiny succulents. They are fleshy and store water. Importantly, they also have spines. Additionally, they are further characterized by having cylindrical to globular shape bodies.

[Note: there are also non-cactus succulents (e.g., “stone flowers”—see my previous post), which do not not have spines].

According to Duff (2017), there are 1750 recognized living species of cacti, and these species are further divided into 127 genera.

The timing of the origin of cacti has been speculated and grossly estimated as being Early Cretaceous, Eocene, or Oligocene, but these reports are very generalized (Griffith, 2004). Although Chaney (1944) and Duff (2017) reported on a single fossil cactus from Eocene rocks of the Green River Formation in Utah, their claims cannot be verified. 

To date, there is no substantiated fossil record of cacti. This is because they lack preservable mineralized tissue. Thus, they are unlike seashells, heavy vertebrate bones, or regular tree wood. What cacti do have internally, however, is much open space (voids) and lots of water. This so-called “wood” is commonly used in aquaria because the abundant “holes” in this cactus material provide places for fish to hide. Some representative examples of the "extremely porous"internal skeletons of cacti "wood" are shown below.

These figured pieces of "wood" are about three inches in diameter and four inches in height, except for the one on the lower right-hand corner--that piece of wood is about 2 inches in diameter and several feet in length.

PRICKLY PEAR CATCUS: GENUS OPUNTIA

This cactus goes by the moniker of “beaver tail cactus.” There are at least 100 species or so of this cactus, which is native to North and South America, and is especially common in the southwestern United States and Mexico. It has spread its distribution into the Mediterranean region, as well as Africa an Australia.

Cacti have rounded pads (also called cladoes, which are modified stems, are not leaves). Many species have a “fuzzy appearance,” because of the numerous spines on the surface of the pads. The length of its spines and their spacing are quite variable among the different species. It is a perennial plant, with new segments (rounded pads) emerging from, and branching off, from old pads (Fig. 2); thereby, producing a characteristic stacking pattern.

Figure showing cladoes (the biggest one is about 7 inches in length) of a prickly cactus.

Determination of the various species of the prickly pear cactus is difficult because of the hybridization among these species. This cactus can grow up to 15 feet tall (4.5 m), but most are three to eight feet tall.  

The prickly pear flowers bloom in late spring to early summer, and they can be yellow, orange, pink, or red in color. Bees and hummingbirds are attracted to these flowers. The fruit of the prickly pear cactus is edible.

Shown here are a few prickly pear flowers that bloomed in early May. This image was taken in mid May, 2025.

GOLDEN BARREL CACTUS: GENUS FEROCACTUS

Ferocactus acanthodes is an unbranched, slow-growing cactus that can live up to 30 years, with “oldtimers” reaching up to 2 meters tall. It is very efficient at storing water in its body. Also, Ferocactus acanthodes cactus is heliocentric as it can lean toward the sun. 

This specimen is slightly bigger than a basketball.

OLD MAN CACTUS: GENUS CEPHALOCERUS

Cephalocereus senillisis also referred to as the “Bunny Cactus” or the “White Persian Cat” cactus because of the fuzzy, white coatings on its spines. This Central American perennial cactus, which is cultivated in the USA, can be up 49 feet tall. 

Image of an "Old Man Cactus" about 4 feet tall in total height.

SAGUARO CACTUS: GENUS CARNEGIEA

Carnegiea gigantea is the only species belonging to this genus. This cactus is tree-like (up to 40 feet tall; note: these very slow growing giant-sized saguaro are called “Cardon” cactus. They can have a long life span, up to 150 years. Their arms start to grow around 75 to 100 years of age, but some never grow arms (these straight sided-specimens are called “spears.” Saguaro cacti are native to the Sonoran Desert in Mexico (including, based on my personal observations, some parts of Baja California Sur, Mexico.) Saguaro also occur in southern Arizona, southern California (Whipple Mountains), and in Sonora (Mexico) (Wikipedia, 2025).

Figure 8. An immature (at least 20 years old) saguraro cactus living in a front yard of one of my neigbor’s yard in northern Los Angeles County, southern California. [This is rather far north for this cactus].

This example of a saguaro cactus is about 8 feet tall. The horizontal white area near the top of the photo is a gutter on the side of a house.

References Cited

Chaney, R.W. 1944. A fossil cactus from the Eocene of Utah. American Journal of Botany 31(8):507-528.

Duff, R. 2017. the naturalhistorian.com   

https:/the naturalhistorian.com > 2017/07/12 > cacti-bi

Wikipedia. 2025.

A SUCCULENT THAT LOOKS LIKE A ROCK

Succulents are plants with parts that are thickened, fleshy, and engorged. They do not have spines. The word “succulent” is derived from the Latin word sucus, meaning juice or sap. [Note: succulents do not constitute a formal taxonomic category]. 

An interesting and unusual example of a succulent is Pleiospilos nelii mesembs, commonly known as the “split rock” succulent. It resembles a rounded fractured stone that is about 4 inches tall and 8 inches wide. This kind of succulent is commonly referred to as a “living stone.” In the fall, it blooms with a flower consisting of many light-orange petals, or in some varieties, with orange-white-magneta color. As this succulent grows, it will open slightly and eventually widen its “split area” to allow new growth.

Figure 1. Three views of the same individual Pleiospilos mesembs (a stone plant) (width 34 mm, height 30 mm, [equivalent to about 1.5 inches wide and 1.25 inches high].

Kingdom Plantae

Family Aizoaceae  [according to some experts, the family is Mesembryanthemaceae]

Genus Pleiospilos (there are several species)

Species nelii

Subspecies mesembs

Please remember that Pleiospilos is a succulent but not a cactus! Cacti are succulents characterized by having spines.