Members of the La Purisima Audubon Society on a bird watching field trip near La Purisima Mission recently sighted a Baikal Teal, a duck-like Asian bird that has never before been seen in California.

Wes Fritz of Lompoc, who was with a group of eight bird watchers, sighted a small male Baikal Teal with a colorful and striking head pattern of black, white, green and beige with a pale pink breast on Dec. 10 in a pond at the Mission Hills Water Treatment Plant.

The normal habitat of the bird, which takes its name from the freshwater Lake Baikal in Russia, is the Far East, Northeast Siberia. It winters in South Korea, Japan and China, said John Vickers, president-elect of the La Purisima Audubon Society, who was among the group of bird watchers.

“This is like finding the Holy Grail,” Vickers said. “No one else will ever be able to claim they saw the first one in California.”

Vickers recalled Fritz's excitement upon sighting the bird.

“I thought the guy was having a heart attack. I've never seen the guy so excited in my life,” he said. “Luckily he was with us, because he was actually able to identify what it was. A lot of us aren't experts.”

Fritz, shaking his head in disbelief at his good luck, said the bird must have become disoriented and veered off course while flying south for the winter. That's the only way it could have ended up in California, he said. Vickers said it must have crossed over through Alaska.

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The sighting, verified by the California Bird Records Committee, has attracted widespread excitement among bird watchers, Vickers said. People have already come from Oregon, Arizona, San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Diego to see the Baikal Teal, which was still visible Monday in a sewage pond at the plant, he said.

Fritz said it was the other bird watchers gathering around him that convinced him that he wasn't dreaming. They quickly consulted their birding handbooks to confirm they were seeing a Baikal Teal.

Fritz contacted Steve Byork, manager of Sissy's Uptown Café, who is an expert bird watcher. Byork arrived and verified the sighting and shared Fritz's excitement.

“There are probably three birds most people want to see in a lifetime and they are the Fulvous Whistling duck, the Eurasian Green Winged duck and the Baikal Teal,” Byork said.

He said people travel long distances, climb mountains and even go out to sea to see these rare birds. To spread the word, Fritz said, they called the “phone chain.” Bird watchers began showing up from all over California and “now they are coming in from many other states as well.”

Fritz said hunters have brought the Baikal Teal into California, as far back as 1946, but until now, it has never been seen alive in the state.

In the 1980s, pesticides and hunting took its toll on the worldwide Baikal Teal population, decreasing the numbers from the hundreds of thousands to an estimated 20,000. Since then the population has gradually returned to about 400,000, Fritz said.

Vickers said the Audubon bird watchers will be excited about the discovery for some time.

“To discover something like this, for a birder, this is what we all aspire to.”

Tymme Mitchell may be reached at 805-737-7168 or tymme1@msn.com. Managing Editor Bo Poertner contributed to this report.

December 21, 2005