Santa Barbara County Birds — 2006

Devereux Slough Christmas Bird Count Tally, 2001–2006

The Santa Barbara Audubon Society had the Christmas bird count this weekend. When there is a focus on birds one cannot help but be enamored by the outdoors which they inhabit. With this comes a responsibility that can be deeply felt and shared with others. A call to duty that is not accepted with joy but reluctance and dread at the revealing of one's own weakness when encountering hardship. The hardship of confrontation, and of awakening one's sense of helplessness in a world of many needs. The hardship of experiencing an aborted effort or making things worse by firing up emotions better left sleeping. Yet words of wisdom talk of the glory of rising above our mortal weakness to respond to higher callings. These words speak of a spiritual purity that is above harm and evil. This freedom is easily symbolized by a bird in flight, free, rising above something bigger and more powerful that is grounded to the earth. Such is life, full of words that speak in paradoxes and metaphors. Birds in flight can reflect our delicate, fragile balance in this world and the heavenly places that we share with those present, before us, and to come in the future.

2006 Santa Barbara Christmas Bird Count — December 30 slideshow

Part of an email response from Jamie Chavez:

I don't make out a white neck collar on this bird, so I am thinking it is a minima race of Cackling Goose, possibly the nominate “Richardson's” Cackling Goose. There may be just a hint of a collar forming, though. Hard to tell from the photos, and often a difficult challenge to identify to subspecific race. Sometimes the so-called experts can't agree! There have been several reported on the central coast this fall, so there may be a strong movement of Cackling Geese this year. If you haven't seen one before, you now have a new bird for your life list!

According to Mark Holmgren, this bird showed up as an immature eagle at Cachuma Lake on July 8, 2005, and had been released on Santa Cruz Island in 2003.

Notes forwarded from Liz Mason — Halli Pedersen's notes:

Per Jessica Dooley, IWS Santa Cruz Island, in an email from July 2005:

#13 is female. She is the offspring of a pair of captive breeding eagles at the San Francisco Zoo's Avian Conservation Center. She was brought to Santa Cruz Island at about eight weeks of age and was released one month later on July 1, 2003. She remained on the islands through April 20, 2004, spending time on Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and Anacapa Islands. In April 2004 she flew to the mainland and spent time in Los Angeles, Ventura, and Santa Barbara counties, including about two weeks at Mugu Lagoon. On May 20, 2004, she flew north, passing through central and northern California, Oregon, Nevada, Idaho, Utah, and finally ending up in Montana. The last GPS data received for her on July 30, 2004, had her about 75 miles east of Helena, Montana, near the Bair Reservoir and the North Fork Musselshell River. That was the last they heard from the bird until this sighting.

November at the Coal Oil Point Reserve area included Bald Eagle, Black-bellied Plover, coots, Double-crested Cormorants fishing, Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, Mallard, Northern Pintail, Redhead, Semipalmated Plover, and terns. Seeing a banded Bald Eagle and watching the cormorants and egrets fish in the fall morning light were noteworthy this month. Many of the fall ducks had come in.

October 2006 slideshow — birds at Devereux Slough, including egrets, Northern Shovelers, American Pintails, American Wigeons, avocets, and Black-necked Stilts (Himantopus mexicanus).