Who says there's a San Francisco exodus, when some are moving to the city without having visited in almost 10 years?
One new resident hasn't visited this decade, making fewer than a handful of stops to the city in the 2010s.
So what if that resident's an ovenbird?
A New World warbler which typically nests east of the Rocky Mountains and migrates south to Mexico or Central America, an ovenbird was first spotted downtown at Salesforce Park on Oct. 11, according to spottings listed on the crowdsourced birdwatching website eBird.
"This guy made a right-hand turn somewhere, and ended up on this side of the Rockies. And now he's in San Francisco, and he may stay quite a while," birder and author Harry Fuller explained to KCBS Radio’s Rebecca Corral in an interview on Thursday afternoon. "Sometimes they'll stay for weeks because the climate's mild, and there's plenty of food."
Ovenbirds had only been seen three times in San Francisco last decade by eBird users, Fuller said Thursday. Users photographed an ovenbird at Salesforce Park as recently as Monday, while others spotted one in Bernal Hill a day prior.
The ovenbird's dome-shaped nest resembles an old-fashioned oven, according to the National Audubon Society, hence the name. Fuller said finding one in San Francisco "shows real skill" from a birder because of its choice of habitat, let alone its typical migration patterns.
"He's very secretive," Fuller said of the ovenbird. "He's a brown bird that likes to hide in the underbrush, so you're not gonna see him sitting on a fencepost or on top of the roof."
If you don't see the ovenbird for however long it calls San Francisco home, you still might hear it.
Fuller said the bird has "quite a pretty call," which the National Audubon Society described as "its ringing chant of teacher, teacher." You can listen to its calls and songs here, so you know what to listen for if you stop by Salesforce Park.
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