Saturday, August 3, 2019

California

I took a family trip to California...we started out at San Francisco, drove south along the coast to Los Angeles and back - stopped at Monterey, Cambria, Santa Barbara and vistas along the way.  I added about 28 lifers on the entire trip. 

Some of the birds I saw were incidental (example Band Tailed Pigeon at Disney) and others I found when I specifically went out birding.  I was surprised to see how common some species were in California compared to Long Island such as Marbled Godwits and Whimbrels seemingly "all over" the beach at Santa Barbara.  I was lucky to see a California Condor fly by at Nepenthe restaurant in Big Sur.  My main target bird was a Heerman's Gull and by the end of the trip I saw hundreds.  I thought I saw a lot of Western Kingbirds in Santa Barbara but I had some doubt that they could have been Cassin's Kingbirds. 

A few of my favorite birds was an Anna's Hummingbird that lived ouside our room in Santa Barbara (photo below) and 3 Red Necked Phalaropes that my daughter found, also in Santa Barbara.  Pelicans were plentiful.

Annas Hummingbird
Allen's Hummingbird
Acorn Woodpecker
Band Tailed Pigeon
Bewicks Wren
"Bicolored Blackbird"
Black Oystercatcher
Black Phoebe
Black Turnstone
Brandt's Comorant
Brewer's Blackbird
California Towhee
California Condor
California Gull
Heerman's Gull
Western Gull
California Scrub Jay
Black Eyed Junco
Elegant Tern
Hooded Oriole
Lesser Goldfinch
Long Billed Curlew
Olympic Gull (Western x Glaucous Winged)
Pigeon Guillemot
Red Necked Phalarope
Scaly Breasted Munia
Spotted Towhee
Stellers Jay
White Collared Swift
Wrentit

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