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THIRD day of passerine migration
Joan Lentz (cox.net address)
Hi Birders: Wow! I’ve been birding since 1980 (gulp!) and I’ve never seen this long a diurnal migration of passerines. I mean it just won’t quit, and there doesn’t seem to be wind involved to stop them, BUT the overcast is thickening and getting lower and the birds are still migrating.
Thanks to all who reported to sbcobirding, very interesting stuff. So much we’re still learning about spring migration. I really appreciate hearing from people and their experiences, because it can be such a great learning opportunity, especially for us with our weird coastline that runs east/west. And yes, for the THIRD day in my yard this madness continues. Into the bottlebrush from the east and feed, maybe stop at the pond, maybe stop at the feeder if you’re a grosbeak, then off they go to the west….Western Tanagers, Black-headed Grosbeaks, Bullock’s Orioles make up the bulk, but also Nashville Warblers and Orange-crowned Warblers. Still working on lists, Good birding! Joan Lentz
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Toro Ridge Trail
Saturday morning, April 18, 2020, Toro Ridge Trail, Carpinteria
After seeing John Callender’s exciting list from this location, Mario, Andrea, Nancy Beebe, and I decided to see what we could find today. 38 species in all. Highlights: 2 Northern Harriers 10 Pac-slopes 4 Ash-throated 2 Hutton’s, 3 Warbling, and 2 Cassin’s Vireos Warblers included Orange-crowned, Nashville, 9 Black-throated Grays, 9 Wilson’s and, best of all, 3 male and 1 female Hermit Warblers. I’m hoping they install an escalator for next season’s migration! Rob Denholtz Carp -- Rob Denholtz Carpinteria
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Farren Road
Florence Sanchez
Farren Road was the place to be this morning, at least as far as the SB Birding Community was concerned. Lots of birders were there checking things out and it was a good day in general. I got a much later start than usual since I went to the Farmer's Market first, but enjoyed a good show of Vaux's Swifts flying with Cliff Swallows when I arrived at the parking area at the top of the hill. I quickly found a female Phainopepla in the pepper trees along the fence of 500 Farren Road. Other species found as I continued to the Reservoir were Western Kingbird, singing Lark Sparrows (2), and a fly-by of what appeared to be a Lazuli Bunting. Near the Reservoir, I found a male Phainopepla and it was singing--not the upslurred whistle we are all familiar with, but a soft, buzzy song that I don't think I've heard before. Continuing up the road, I had an Ash-throated Flycatcher, more Lark Sparrows, more Swifts, and more Kingbirds. I walked as far as the pepper trees above the Oak Woodland before turning back. On the way down, I picked up another Lazuli Bunting. The only Warblers I had were the resident orange-crowns and Common Yellowthroats. House Wrens continue to sing in many locations and I may have found a nest site--will keep an eye on that. Hooded Orioles were present, as were Western Bluebirds. Nice day for raptors too, with Red-tailed and Red-shouldered Hawks, American Kestrel, and White-tailed Kite. Ravens and Turkey Vultures were also flying. Florence Sanchez
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A Tempest of Tanagers
Florence Sanchez
That's the term the late author and fellow birder Margaret Millar used to describe a blitz of Western Tanagers she had at her Canyon home one fall. That term certainly came to my mind this morning when I decided to check Santa Monica Creek in Carp before going to the Farmer's Market. The place was simply loaded with them from the beginning of the path at Via Real to the Big Sycamore at El Carro. They were in the various plants in people's back yards, in bottlebrush bushes, blooming eucalyptus, Tecomaria, sycamore--in other words, everywhere. I have no idea what the total number of Tanagers was in this short stretch because there was constant movement between trees and bushes, but a very rough ballpark figure would be 25-40. Second to them in number were Black-headed Grosbeaks, which too were everywhere in all the trees, many of them singing, males and females--another glorious show. Mixed in with them were both Hooded and Bullock's Orioles--I have no idea how many but I saw adult males of each species as well as adult females and an immature males for each. My purpose in going to this spot was to see if I could see the potential hybrid Oriole that has been hanging around, but with so much activity, I gave up trying to find something specific and just enjoyed whatever passed in front of my eyes. There were not a lot of Warblers, except for several Orange-crowned feeding on the blooms. I also picked up a single flock of Yellow-rumps (about 6). One was changing into alternate plumage; the others were still in pretty drab basic attire. There were quite a few hummingbirds around, but most were dark buzzing blips against a gray sky. However, I did pull out Anna's, Allen's, and a male Black-chinned from the mix. I did not see or hear the Orchard Oriole while I was there, but that really doesn't mean anything. I left around 8:20 a.m. to go to the Market, so I have no idea how long the show lasted, but I think it might be worth someone's while to re-check it tomorrow morning. Florence Sanchez
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Migration on Figueroa including MacGillivray's Warbler
Peter Schneekloth
I spent the first part of the morning low on the west slope of Figueroa Mountain where I had a very nice mix of migrants and resident birds. Warblers included Nashville, Wilson's, Orange-crowned, Black-throated Gray and Yellow-rumped. Thrown in Lazuli Bunting and Lawrence's Goldfinch, a large flock of 40 or more Pine Siskins and some great looks at Cassin's Vireo and I was busy for several hours. Full list here:
https://ebird.org/checklist/S67406115 I drove up and over the mountain intending to make several stops but the fog was so thick I could hardly see the road. Things did not clear up until I was nearly down to Cachuma camp where I had been yesterday. I had seen MacGillivray's there yesterday but had much better looks today in a small mixed flock. Looks here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/55934026@N05/49790385757/in/dateposted-public/ Peter Schneekloth Buellton
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Upper Refugio Creek Canyon
I birded the upper reach of Refugio Creek Canyon this morning, and there was a good amount of migrant activity. Seven Nashville, two Yellow, three Black-throated gray, five Orange-crowned, two Townsend, five Hermit, and two Wilson's warblers plus a heap of warblers I didn't see well enough to ID. Also two Western wood-pewees, fourteen pac slope, three Ash-throated flycatchers, and thirteen warbling vireos. These numbers, if anything, is an undercount. Also, I only got as far down as the horse ranch so there was probably even more birds further down. After reading about all the migrants the last couple of days I was glad to get in on some of the action.
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Barron Ranch
Bradley Hacker
I have been walking at Barron Ranch for quite a while now, but never had a good migration day there. Today, finally, was pretty good. I had about 20 each of Wilson’s and Nashville warblers, along with a smattering of other expected migrants. No Hermit warbler and no Hammonds flycatcher.
-- Good birding, Bradley Hacker Goleta CA https://www.flickr.com/photos/bradley_hacker/albums
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Riviera Migrants.
Noah Gaines
4.18.20. I spent from 7:30 till 9:30 walking around the riviera and birding. Great day for migration with.
Common Loon Vaux’s swift Western Tanager BH Grosbeak YRWA Hooded Oriole Bullocks Oriole Cedar Waxwing Western Kingbird Ash/throated Flycatcher NRW Swallow Cliff Swallow All moving through. Migration started around 8am. Other birds of note: RB Nuthatch Pine Siskin Costa’s HB Noah Gaines SB CA
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Re: More of today’s migrant push
Ron Hirst
I spent much of the day, especially mid-day, scanning the mostly cloudy sky over Riviera area and in contrast to your experience only 5 Red Tails and 14 TVs and a Cooper's flew by. The Swainson's you saw Must Have gone over the ridge line towards the back-country. I see hawks thermal over Riviera (roof heat rising?) and then head toward Cachuma. There were also 30 kingbirds in groups of 1 - 4 birds so your kingbirds may have gone over the ridgeline too. Without scope I see 270 degrees up to Franceschi Park ridge line and down to the city (and harbor with scope ... like Lehman, I yard count ocean birds). I see from lower Montecito/Sycamore Canyon sky to San Roque sky. Spring hawks fly towards me from Montecito/Sycamore Canyon area and then fly by or thermal up and over Riviera area. The migration of all birds in general seemed very slow for Riviera area yesterday. The density and height of the clouds likely makes a difference. Lower and thicker cloud cover than yesterday seems better for viewing foothill migrants from here.
Ron Hirst, SB
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Tufted Duck Continues
John Deacon
All
The TUDU at the small A Street in Santa Maria was present at 0730 Saturday. John Deacon Orcutt -- John Deacon Orcutt
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Re: migrant update
Rebecca Coulter
All,
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text
I wanted to chime in just a bit to comment on the activity at Berkeley. When I arrived at 3:00, birds were not dripping from the trees, as I had hoped. It was actually pretty quiet. I walked the trail on the west side of the creek below the bike bridge and stopped at a large oak to listen to a flock of Bushtits. I soon found that it was a big mixed flock of warblers, well not exactly like Magee Marsh (Ohio) but pretty great for us: 4-5 Nashvilles, 4 Black-throated Grays, 2 Yellow-rumps, half a dozen Orange-crowned, and a Wilson’s. Black-headed Grosbeak, Bullock’s Orioles, and Western Tanager nearby. The first hummingbird I got my binoculars on was a Calliope male sitting neatly on a willow stem. It was interesting to see how often the warblers flew back and forth from the oak to the willows, maybe just more noticeable because of the number of birds. I noticed the same kind of behavior in the other flocks I saw north of the bridge: three or four warblers and a couple of tanagers or grosbeaks would all fly out from the sycamores and head to the bottlebrushes, back and forth, foraging quickly and then moving on. It was easy to imagine a sense of urgency as they tanked up for the next leg of migration. By 5pm, the activity had really dropped. I was surprised not to find Ash-throated Flycatcher, as so many others had multiples throughout the day. Rebecca Coulter SB
On Apr 17, 2020, at 8:58 PM, Joan Lentz (cox.net address) <joanlentz@cox.net> wrote:
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[eBird Alert] Santa Barbara County Rare Bird Alert <daily>
eBird alert
*** Species Summary:
- Black-throated Sparrow (1 report) --------------------------------------------- Thank you for subscribing to the <daily> Santa Barbara County Rare Bird Alert.The report below shows observations of rare birds in Santa Barbara County. View or unsubscribe to this alert at https://ebird.org/alert/summary?sid=SN35915 NOTE: all sightings are UNCONFIRMED unless indicated Black-throated Sparrow (Amphispiza bilineata) (2) - Reported Apr 14, 2020 06:28 by Mark Holmgren - Deer Park Canyon (SBA Co), Santa Barbara, California - Map: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&;t=p&z=13&q=34.859633,-119.463974&ll=34.859633,-119.463974 - Checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S67376117 - Media: 1 Photo - Comments: "Recording obtained at 34.86330 -119.47026 which is at up cyn gate. Other species in background include California Quail, Black-headed Grosbeak, Western Kingbird, Bell's Sparrow. I’m only about 45 m up the canyon from the up Canyon gate." *********** You received this message because you are subscribed to eBird's Santa Barbara County Rare Bird Alert Manage your eBird alert subscriptions: https://ebird.org/alerts
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migrant update
Joan Lentz (cox.net address)
Hi Birders: I finally went out to make a list about 5:30 pm, and by then the activity in my yard had begun to die way down. Many fewer birds. In any case, my best guess about yesterday and today (opinions welcome) is that there was a wind from the south/southeast, and it pushed a lot of spring migrants along, especially, in my case, tanagers, grosbeaks, Nashville Warblers, Bullock’s Orioles. They stayed all day yesterday and through mid-afternoon today (or were joined by others during the day, not sure), but then, and this is what’s amazing, others in Goleta seemed to have a lot of birds from mid-afternoon on. Rebecca Coulter had an amazing list from Merida Dr./Berkeley Bike bridge area. Farren Road was good. All later in the day.
However, Nick reports no activity to speak of up Refugio Canyon this morning. So, either these birds will have migrated out tonight (over the cloudy mountains?) or not, but I wish I could be at Refugio tomorrow to see whether they’re moving there, or whether they got out of here before nightfall. I think what’s so interesting was that this was a movement of migrants (see Eric Culbertson’s post), that wasn’t exactly a fallout, because it wasn’t “stopped” by anything….at least not yet. However, any cloud cover helps, and this may’ve slowed the birds down so they took time to feed at various spots (bottlebrush, etc.) and to fly lower than usual! Yay for that, Joan Lentz Montecito
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More of today’s migrant push
Eric Culbertson <ebc101@...>
As others have noted it was busy out there today! Here’s most of what I could identify passing during 7 hours spent along Ortega Ridge Road behind Summerland:
372 western kingbird 32 swainson’s hawks 144 vaux’s swift 103 loon 800+ swallows (identifiable swallows were nearly all cliff but with scattered barn and a northern rw) 22 turkey vulture 1 osprey 1 dc cormorant + small numbers of other birds From Ortega I could see many additional birds passing lower than me out along the coast (more kingbirds I suspect + swallows). Several passing hawks went unidentified. I mostly hung around where Ortega intersects with Greenwell Av but moved north along Ortega and east down Greenwell trying different vantage points. Eric Culbertson Carpinteria
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Re: [EXTERNAL] [sbcobirding] Tufted Duck
David Kisner
Tufted Duck still present as of 4:20. American avocet and 3 green-winged teals were a nice addition.
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text
David Kisner Orcutt
On Apr 16, 2020, at 15:15, Nick Lethaby via groups.io <nlethaby@...> wrote:
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Re: Current migrant push
Bradley Hacker
This is an interesting spatial heterogeneity. I just spent an hour
watching one side of our house with 6 bird baths and saw LESS than
the usual number of birds--one Pac Slope Fly; the other side of our
house with a feeder has a couple of Grosbeaks, Purple Finches, and a
Stellar's Jay, but...
On 4/17/2020 16:35 PM, Adam Searcy
wrote:
-- Bradley R. Hacker Professor of Geology Dept of Earth Science and Earth Research Institute University of California, Santa Barbara CA 93106-9630 http://hacker.faculty.geol.ucsb.edu LASS: http://www.petrochronology.com EPMA, SEM & EBSD: http://sites.google.com/site/semgeolucsb -- Good birding, Bradley Hacker Goleta CA https://www.flickr.com/photos/bradley_hacker/albums
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Re: Current migrant push
Adam Searcy
Hopefully some other folks were able to experience some visible migration today (or are still experiencing it). I ended up standing in my driveway for 2 hours 25 minutes and some highlights were: 252 Vaux's Swift 253 Common Loon 10 Swainson's Hawk 284 Western Kingbird ~ 300 Swallows of various species (almost everything identifiable was a Cliff Swallow). Here's a complete list with some poor documentation shots (https://ebird.org/checklist/S67375167) A rather low-diversity list but decent numbers and very interesting movement of birds. This was one of my more memorable pushes of diurnal migrants on the California coast where migration is often less obvious than some mountain and desert locations (or The East). Amazing what you can see if you stand in your driveway at the right time and I hope this is further encouragement to work on those yard lists, no matter where your yard might be. Cheers, Adam
Hi all, --
Adam J. Searcy Santa Barbara, CA
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Re: Get outside if u can!
Nick Lethaby
Winchester Canyon has a good arrival of tanagers and likely grosbeaks as well. Nothing else particularly more common than recently.
On Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 2:56 PM Bradley Hacker <hacker@...> wrote:
--
Nick Lethaby
Goleta, CA
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Museum of Natural History and Winchester Canyon
Florence Sanchez
I checked out the Woodland Loop at the Museum of Natural History this morning. The big Warbler push of 10 days ago is history, but in a short time of birding, I still found 1 each Nashville and Black-throated Gray Warblers, 2 Wilson's, several Orange-crowns, several Warbling Vireos, a Black-headed Grosbeak, and both Hooded and Bullock's Orioles in addition to the usual Oak Woodland birds. A couple of Ruby-crowned Kinglets are still present and singing. On Puesta del Sol Road outside the Museum grounds, I had a nice Audubon's Yellow-rump singing (in a tall Lemon Gum Eucalyptus). I found only a couple of hummingbirds on Museum grounds and NONE at the sage patch at 2727 Miradero Drive. That was surprising, since the patch is in full bloom and usually is booming with hummers. I moved on to Winchester Canyon, where I experienced the same kind of fall-out others have been posting about today. In one bottlebrush tree alone on Rio Vista Drive, I have at least 6 Western Tanagers, 3 Bullock's Orioles, 2 Hooded Orioles, 2 Black-headed Grosbeaks, a Downy Woodpecker, and several Hummingbirds. This was repeated in other trees along Rio Vista Drive and was finally dying down when I left about 11 a.m. It was hard to identify the many Hummingbirds I had flying around, but I came up with multiples of Anna's, 1 male Allen's, 1 male Rufous on Winchester Drive, and 2 female Black-chins. It was a head-spinning hour and a half! Florence Sanchez
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Re: Get outside if u can!
The BirdCast live migration maps from last night show high nighttime migration activity around here last night and they forecast moderate activity the next two nights as well. (Perhaps I'm the last one to find out about the migration maps and forecasts but I thought they were really neat and a potentially good guide to when to go out and look for migrants.) ______________ Linus Blomqvist
Hey Birders: It’s insane with all these Western Tanagers, Nashville Warblers, and Black-headed Grosbeaks on the move. Libby Patten reported that Merida Dr was going off like crazy at all the bottlebrush trees there.
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