RARE BIRDS
Occasionally, I stumble across birds which are either rare or out of range. I don’t twitch out of range birds, so this is a list of ones I found and reported myself. This list will also include birds that are quite rare/endangered in their native range.
EASTERN KINGBIRD – SACRAMENTO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA 2023
My first out of range bird. Saw it while walking along a bike trail and reported it. It was the first eastern kingbird in Sacramento county in several years.
HAWAII ʻELEPAIO C. s. bryani SUBSPECIES – HAWAII BIG ISLAND 2023
Decently sure this is the dry māmane forest subspecies of the Hawaii ‘elepaio. There’s only about 2,000 of this subspecies making it pretty rare. Normally, I don’t care about subspecies, but I’ll make an exception for this one.
BLACK-AND-WHITE WARBLER – EL DORADO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA 2024
Didn’t get an ID of this one until months later because I thought it was just a black-throated gray warbler. I actually ended up seeing black-and-white warblers in the Cayman Islands before I IDed this bird. Still a cool sighting. I think the only report for that county in 2024.
SANDWICH TERN – GRAND CAYMAN 2024
Saw this bird twice while in the Cayman Islands. It came up as a rare bird report on Ebird, but maybe its not as rare as Ebird says. It was quite windy while I was there, so perhaps the bird was blown off course.
WORM-EATING WARBLER – NYC CENTRAL PARK JUNE 2025
This warbler was out of season in New York when I visited, but I spotted it way up in a tree. Pretty lucky because I wasn’t in New York for very long.
Bryce Parker's Website 