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North County Again

Common Tern

Viewers of this blog may be wondering why it’s called “The Goleta Birder” since there have not been any posts about Goleta! This reflects both the fact I have been out of town a lot the last few months but also the fact that the birding around Goleta so far in fall migration has been pretty putrid. I have been out checking the beach at Coal Oil Point, which is our best local shorebird spot, on most days. When talking with Florence Sanchez, another local birder, I likened the recent birding there to the movie “Groundhog Day” since every visit I seemed to see the same variety and number of birds!

Desperate to escape this, I decided to make on September 2 to make a sweep up through various shorebird spots in the northern part of the county, starting (and ending) with the Santa Ynez River estuary (SYRE) and then heading up to the Santa Maria Valley and river estuary. Note that the photos in this post are mine, which is why they are so bad …

Upon arrival at the SYRE, I was delighted to see numerous shorebirds feeding along the section by the sandbar that had sealed off the estuary from the sea. I quickly found three previously-reported Baird’s Sandpipers and there were 86 juvenile Short-billed Dowitchers along with reasonable numbers of other regular shorebirds. The high-water levels in the estuary upriver had already flooded a fair amount of the salicornia marsh, which is attracting a good number of dabbling ducks including the first returning Pintail and Green-winged and Blue-winged Teals.

On the way out of the park, I decided to check a cattle feedlot that attracts a lot of blackbirds. While scanning the blackbirds, I noticed that the feedlot had attracted a few Mourning and Eurasian Collared Doves. I was just musing about the possibility of these in turn attracting a White-winged Dove – a “common vagrant” to Santa Barbara – when one flew in and landed on the fence!

White-winged Dove

I then headed up to the Santa Maria Valley and started surreptitiously checking various agricultural areas for suitable ponds or short-grazed pasture. I eventually found a suitable pond that had many Western and Least Sandpiper with about 14 each of Greater Yellowlegs, along with a single Lesser Yellowlegs. A couple of Wilson’s Phalaropes were among the dozens of Red-necked Phalaropes. I then noticed a couple of juvenile Pectoral Sandpiper, my first of the fall migration. Leaving these behind, I went to check the surrounding area for more suitable shorebird spots. Failing to find any, I stopped again on the way back to double check my yellowlegs count and immediately noticed a shorebird with a distinctive big-bodied, hunched profile. Getting the bird in my scope immediately confirmed my suspicions that it was a Ruff – a juvenile male in fact. After a burst of these in the county around 2004-8, I hadn’t seen one in the county since, a big inditement of the poor shorebirding here, as Ruff is one of the commonest Eurasian shorebird vagrants to the Pacific coast of the USA.

Ruff

After some further searching, I found another good pond that had a good variety of birds. There were over 400 Red-necked Phalarope and 100 Short-billed Dowitcher and less common birds included five Lesser Yellowlegs, four Pectoral Sandpipers, two each of Solitary and Baird’s Sandpipers and a Red Knot.

I then headed out to the Santa Maria River Estuary. This was formerly a legendary spot for rare shorebirds back in the 80s and 90s but a combination of access restrictions and habitat changes have made this a distant memory. These days the river mouth is mostly a tule-fringed lake and it is rarely possible to get close to any shorebirds unless they are right on the sandbar.

One consolation is that there are more breeding waterbirds now the mouth is mostly closed and I soon found an Eared Grebe with a single chick tucked on their back. This is a species that seems to be breeding a little more frequently these days. A group of mergansers consisted of five juvenile Common Mergansers that presumably bred locally and an over-summering Red-breasted. There were a lot of terns around the river mouth, mostly Royal and Elegant but including some medium-sized terns. These were rather distant much of the time but patiently waiting an hour was rewarded with good looks at almost all of them – a remarkable (for these days) count of 11 Common Terns. I have not had such an on-shore count of this magnitude for at least 15 years.

Common Terns

While waiting for the terns to cooperate, there had been a few flocks of Marbled Godwits and Whimbrels flying around and landing in various spots. At one point, I had heard a Wandering Tattler calling but assumed it was just flying over as there is no suitable habitat in the river mouth. However, when I heard the call again some minutes later, I guessed it was in fact hanging around. I then located it flying with a Ruddy Turnstone in a flock of Marbled Godwits.

Ruddy Turnstone

Wandering Tattler

All-in-all, it proved to be one of the best days I have ever had for uncommon and scarce shorebirds in the county.

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