Notes about your surroundings.

Unusual Bird Sightings--Fall is in full swing, as is the migration season for birds. The Sea & Sage chapter of the National Audubon Society reports there have been several rare birds sightings thus far.

A sulphur-bellied flycatcher was seen at the Shipley Nature Center in Huntington Central Park in mid-September. It was the first recorded sighting in Orange County and one of the few statewide.

An exciting sighting was that of a merlin in Dana Point in late September, being pursued by a peregrine falcon.

Two greater peewees, the third and fourth recorded sightings of which in the county, were also seen in mid-September--one at Huntington Central Park and the other at Newport Beach’s Environmental Nature Center.

Huntington Central Park was the place to be to spot several other fall vagrants. These include two summer tanagers, two Virginia’s warblers, a black-and-white warbler, two blackpoll warblers, a prairie warbler, two green-tailed towhees, an indigo bunting, a Brewer’s sparrow and a rose-breasted grosbeak.

A prairie warbler was also spotted at Westminster Memorial Park, as was a chestnut-sided warbler, a blackpoll warbler, a Tennessee warbler and an American redstart.

In residential Costa Mesa, there were three unusual bird sightings in September--a clay-colored sparrow, another American redstart and a third prairie warbler. In residential Seal Beach, an ovenbird was spotted.

Few unusual shore birds were spotted in September, with these exceptions: a solitary sandpiper, spotted at the Santa Ana River; as many as eight pectoral sandpipers, seen at San Joaquin Fresh Water Marsh Reserve; and one or two black terns, also at the marsh.