I hit many of the same spots Nick did over the past couple of days, to get an idea of what the water birds are doing after the big rain Saturday morning. 

The only addition of even minor note was that this afternoon I saw a female COMMON GOLDENEYE at North Campus Open Space. My Blue-winged Teal count at Area K yesterday was about 10, and I suspect there were more than that. There were reasonably good numbers of gulls at NCOS, Goleta Beach, and Goleta Slough in one of the basins (B/C) northeast from Area K. But, as Nick said, nothing unusual.

I did want to comment on NCOS. The restoration here has added a new element to water bird occurrence. In the past, it would attract some geese and maybe some large shorebirds. But now, if you want to check on the shorebirds or the ducks around Devereux, a trip around to NCOS will be necessary to know what's going on. More habitat, more birds, more birding.

And a comment on geese in Goleta. I could find only a handful of geese, despite looking for them all over Goleta the past two days. Looks like recent eBird reports haven't had more than 30 Canadas anywhere, and it's been a while since anyone has reported Ross's or Greater White-fronted.  

Dave Compton

Santa Barbara

On Sun, Feb 3, 2019 at 3:26 PM Nick Lethaby <nlethaby@...> wrote:

I did a quick tour of LLC, Goleta Beach, Area K, Stork Field, and Devereux late morning. Didn't use a scope to properly check any of them. LLC is getting nicely full, but still well short of the overflow level. If the overflow pond actually gets full, then I will declare the drought over. Area K has lots of water as do the surrounding areas. 

Gull variety was similarly disappointing to Ocean Beach yesterday with no GW, Herring, or Thayer's, and just a couple of hybrids. I didn't check the gull flock on NCOS closely, but there was nothing obviously good.

Area K and the surrounding ponds had a nice variety of ducks including 4 BW Teal. These were probably the most interesting birds I saw.

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Nick Lethaby

Goleta, CA

nlethaby@...

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