LOS ANGELES — For the last two weeks, a little bird with big feet has turned a 320-acre marsh in Irvine into one of the hottest birding destinations in Southern California.

Hundreds of birdwatchers have flocked to the Irvine Ranch Water District's San Joaquin Marsh, hoping to catch a glimpse of a juvenile purple gallinule.

It's the first documented sighting of the rare bird in Orange County and the eighth in California since 1961. The sighting still needs to be accepted by the California Bird Records Committee, which reviews and confirms rare bird sightings in the state.

The swamp hen, known by its scientific name, Porphyrio martinica, is mostly found along the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean as well as parts of South America. The bird, however, is known to wander past its range and has been spotted as far as Iceland, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, a research and conservation institute.

Last year, an adult purple gallinule was spotted some 600 miles north at the Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary in Humboldt County, state records show. It's the state's northernmost sighting to date, according to state records.

This is not the first bird sighting to spark a frenzy in Southern California. Three years ago, an Arctic owl captivated residents in Cypress after arriving around the Christmas holiday in 2022 before it left the next month.

An adult purple gallinule has a bright purple and green body with a pale blue marking that resembles a shield above its red and yellow bill. Meanwhile, juveniles are pale brown with tints of bronze-green on the wings and back.

The bird, which feeds on vegetation and insects, has long, bright yellow legs and toes that it uses to gracefully make its way through the wetland.

Ian Swift, natural resources manager at the Irvine Ranch Water District, said the bird was spotted about two weeks ago by a birder who then posted it on a public forum for birdwatchers.

"So from there, like many things on social media, it spread like wildfire," Swift said, chuckling.

He said people posted updates and photos about the bird on the forum, which drove more people to visit the marsh.

"The San Joaquin Marsh here is, you know, for the most part pretty quiet during the week," Swift said. "And now, there's literally hundreds of people here since the bird was sighted."

The bird's unexpected visit has drawn so many curious birdwatchers that the overflow parking lot has filled up at times, he said.

Joel Weintraub, 84, said credit for the discovery of the bird goes to marsh visitor Charles Baker, who spotted it Aug. 13 and posted a photo of the bird on EBird, a free online database. He said a user by the name "Sharilyn" then identified the bird as a purple gallinule.

Soon after, word spread among bird enthusiasts and out came the "birdarazzi."

"The first couple of days over a hundred or so showed up," Weintraub said.

He waited until Aug. 16 to visit the marsh and look for the bird. He took photos and made a video of his visit on YouTube.

Weintraub said he was happy to see a diverse group of birders at the marsh.

"I looked around and saw some old timers," he said. "But there were a lot of young people in their 20s and 30s, a new generation of birders."

Among them is Basil Liu, 25, who got into birding three years ago.

Liu, who grew up reading National Geographic and watching Animal Planet, said she got into bird-watching after she downloaded Merlin Bird ID, a birding app.

"It lets you track the birds you see and scientists use the data," she said. "So it was super cool because you could go out birding, keep a list of everything you saw and it would tell you if something was uncommon."

Liu said a while back she signed up to a mailing list that alerts subscribers about rare bird sightings in Southern California.

She said she was home with her roommates when she saw the email notification come through Aug. 13. She had mixed feelings about it.

"I used to live with my parents in Lake Forest so San Joaquin Marsh was not far at all, but I recently moved to the San Fernando Valley," she said. "So I got that email and was like: 'No, I used to be so close, but now I'm so far."

Last week she visited her parents and went to the marsh to look for the bird.

"I was very hopeful because it had been consistently seen for over a week, so I got up early in the morning, went over and I was very lucky that it was just hanging out," she said. "So I ended up sitting there for like two hours just taking pictures, and you had other birders there."

What brought the young purple gallinule to the state is up for debate, but it was no surprise it chose one of the largest coastal wetlands in Southern California.

The marsh was built in the 1990s to naturally clean dry-weather urban runoff from San Diego Creek and address the algae blooms that once existed in Upper Newport Bay, according to the water district's website.

"The secondary benefit of having this beautiful marsh is this fantastic wildlife," Swift said. "There's over 300 species of birds that have been seen in the marsh over the years."

He said the marsh also serves as a green space for the public that includes about 12 miles of walking trails.

"You see all kinds of nature, you know, not just birds, but plants and other wildlife even though we're tucked in the middle of urbanization and by an airport, you can't hear the planes when you're down in the trails, you can't hear the cars driving by."

"One out of one purple gallinule loves this place," he added, chuckling.

Water district officials said the swamp hen was still at the marsh as of Wednesday night. The San Joaquin Marsh is open from dawn to sunset. No dogs are allowed. For updates, visit the Orange County Birding forum.

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