With its yellow chest, gray sides and black chin, the Lawrence's Goldfinch is one of California's most striking birds. It's also one of the most unpredictable. While it is a year-round resident of California (mostly southern coastal), in the winter it will irrupt into Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Baja. Only sometimes it won't. In the spring, it can be counted on to burst northward throughout California, giving the rest of a state a look at it. We'll try to figure out this year's pattern with eBird maps below the fold (photo by Jerry Oldenettle):

At the end of February, the Lawrence's Goldfinch was indeed spreading out into the southwest (particularly Arizona), but also showing good numbers throughout California:

In March, we saw it still inhabiting parts of Arizona, but nonetheless distributing northward in California:

Today, in April, it seems to have mostly left other states and pushed more fully throughout California: