Saw one a few years back at my parents place (suburbs northwest of Philly). It landed in a stream in their backyard, pulled out a pretty sizable fish, and proceeded to eat it in the lawn. It was so cool!

Yeah I think this may have just been a within-family name for the dish. I know she moved to California with my grandad for a bit before they got married so it may be that they ate it a lot out there and named it that, but that’s just speculation on my part

I’m having a weird flashback to my grandmother (from the suburbs outside of Philadelphia) making what she’d called “California cheeseburgers” that were actually burger paddies without buns with tomato sauce. I wonder if this was the origin of that. I googled California cheeseburger and I just see a bunch of stuff about in-n-out and stuff.