The Goleta Birder

  One of the great things about the Pacific states of the USA is that the presence of high mountains, and their associated rain shadows, creates significant changes in habitats over short distances. In Santa Barbara County, we have three “traverse” ranges, which run east to west. North of the third range lies the Cuyama Valley, which hosts some semi-desert scrub and grasslands. A number of bird species are more frequent here than elsewhere in the county and it is a good area for wintering raptors. When I first moved to Santa Barbara County, a Rough-legged Hawk showed up by the freeway about 50 minutes of Goleta and hung around for a few weeks. Since my recently purchased “Birds of Santa Barbara” described the species as an irregular winter visitor, I never got around to chasing this bird. I later discovered that it was the first in the county for almost a decade and that the species had become much more difficult. In the 25 years since, I have visited good wintering raptor areas ...

My original motivation for this trip was to participate in the Barra de Potosi Christmas Bird Count (CBC). After a relaxing morning at my hotel in Zihuatanejo, I lugged my bags a few hundred yards over to where I could catch a bus to the airport, from where I was able to transfer to a bus to Barra de Potosi. On arrival I dumped my gear in the room at El Nido and connected up to the wi-fi so I could communicate with Laurel Patrick, the count organizer, and Santiago Castro, a local birder who I would be birding with on Saturday morning and on the actual count, which was on the Sunday. Laurel is the founder of El Refugio de Potasi, where injured or orphaned local wildlife that cannot safely return to the wild can find a home. Heermann's Gull Once I had sorted out when and where I would be meeting Santiago, I wandered down to the mouth of the lagoon, hoping to find something on the sandbanks. Although there is a lot of disturbance from fisherman and tourist wading around in the lagoon ...

Although I was still based in Ixtapa, I rented a vehicle so I could visit the northern edge of the Sierra Madre del Sul. The area closest to Ixtapa is not remotely as good as the fabled Sierra de Atoyac a few hours to the south, where the endemic Short-crested Coquette is found. However, as I had pioneered birding the highway through here, I wanted to continue discovering which bird species were present. Highway 134, which crosses the northern edge of the Sierra, can be periodically unsafe due to banditry. Fortunately, Will’s wife has relatives who live close to the pass and he was kind enough to check with them and confirm it was currently fine. In addition to birding the mountains, I had been spending a lot of time checking satellite imaging of the coastal plain to look for potentially good wetlands. When I checked the images of the mouth of the Atoyac (formerly Balsas) River, on the border with state of Michoacan, I noticed that there was clearly a power station outflow into the o...

 We took our first visit to Ixtapa back in 2002 and soon discovered that it was our favorite location for family vacations in Mexico. The proximity of good thorn forest close to the hotels made it very easy for me to pop out for some productive birding early in the morning while the rest of family slept in. After visiting the area a few times, I became aware of local Christmas Bird Count centered around Laguna de Potosi, south of the airport. I had told the organizer, Laurel Patrick, that I would like to attend the count one year, but it had proved difficult to line up. Finally, this year I booked a trip that enabled me to attend. Remy decided to pass on an Ixtapa trip this winter, so I was able to bird at full-throttle, something of a mixed blessing in the hot and humid tropics! One of the best areas near Ixtapa is Playa Linda. Here a bike track runs between a thorn forest-covered hill and mangrove and freshwater marshes on the other side. There are also mountain bike trails t...

Although I have never really been into my 'yardlist', we have intermittently maintained seed and hummingbird feeders in our backyard, usually at the initiative of my wife, Remy. Since we moved to our current address, we have made a bit more effort and have had a few birds of interest, including six species of hummingbird and occasional visits by one or two White-winged Doves. However, we have had very little out of the ordinary with respect to seed-eating species, despite backing on to agricultural fields and having a regular flock of White-crowned Sparrows. This fall, I have put more effort into making sure the feeder is filled regularly and also scattering seed around on the ground so the sparrows can easily access it, without having to wait for the House Finches to displace seed from the feeder. This proved effective as I quickly built up a small flock of White-crowned Sparrows and juncos, as well as attracting the usual suspects to the feeder itself. Interestingly House Spa...