The “Morning Flight” at Refugio Canyon

 Some 40 years ago, birders at Cape May in New Jersey discovered a ‘morning flight’ during which warblers and other “nocturnal” migrants migrated from the Avalon Peninsula back towards the Delaware coastline in the first two to three hours of daylight. A similar flight was discovered around that time at Butterbredt Spring in Kern County in the Mojave Desert of California. For a long time, the phenomenon was believed to be confined to a few locations but the discovery of another large morning flight at Bear Divide in eastern Los Angeles County heightened interest elsewhere in southern California and birders began to discover additional sites.

Starting In spring 2018, I began spending more time in Refugio Canyon, about 13 miles west of Goleta, during periods of strong northwesterly winds as local birders had become aware that larger numbers of western migrants sometimes occurred in such conditions. One motivation of course was to find rarities but there are many western migrants, including Hermit and Nashville Warblers, Yellow-breasted Chat, Swainson’s Thrush, Cassin’s Vireo, Hammond’s Flycatcher and Black Swift that are much more frequent in spring than fall locally.

In April 2020, I had been trying various locations along the canyon to see which were the most productive for seeing migrants. One morning, I went up the canyon to a point where it opens out more as the creek splits into two forks and the slope begins to rise steeply towards the Santa Ynez Mountain crest. There was large oak tree on a hairpin bend that I and other birders had previously noted would hold a few warblers. While standing at the bend to check this tree, I noticed that passerines were moving through an isolated line of oak trees 100 yards further up the road. Walking up there, I discovered a near constant stream of migrants were moving up slope and observed a few hundred birds pass through over the subsequent three hours. This immediately became my favorite spring birding location. Although 2020 was an exceptional year for numbers of western migrants at this location that has subsequently never been equaled, I find one or two rarities most years as well as enjoying the commoner western migrants in their spring finery.

Migrant streams through the “watchpoint area” in Refugio Canyon. 

I typically focus on the three right-hand flight paths.

Subsequent investigation by Brad Hacker and other local birders have found similar morning flights occur at many canyons along the coastal slope of the Santa Ynez Mountains. The passes further east, such as San Marcos, appear to have more birds moving through. However, such movements are only visible during conditions of strong WNW to NNE winds. This northerly airflow is stronger and more frequent in the west of the county with the result that suitable winds occur much more frequently at Refugio Canyon than they do further east. The observation points in the canyon are also easy to access, being just a few miles from the 101 freeway and not requiring long drives on narrow winding roads up into the mountains.

Although migrants such as Violet-green Swallows can be observed passing over even in February, the variety of migrants is pretty limited until the end of March. After returning from the UK in mid-March, I was stymied by unusually warm and windless whether before suitable conditions finally lined up for the morning of April 2. As I drove west on the 101, I noted that the flags at El Capitan campground were straight out towards the east, indicating a fairly strong WNW wind.

I arrived at the “watchpoint” area shortly after 7 AM. Very little was moving other than a few swallows, of which at least some were Violet-greens. Often it takes some time for migrants to appear and I was fairly early in the season. There was a definite wind and a group of Turkey Vultures was swirling around, a reliable indicator that the wind was strong enough to force smaller migrants down.

The first birds to appear were a few orioles (Hooded and Bullock’s), a Western Tanager and a Black-headed Grosbeak, the latter two being my first of the spring. Then a steady trickle of Western Kingbirds began to move up-canyon. This species is one of the most conspicuous migrants in the first half of April and are easy to identify in flight. Interestingly I have only ever seen Cassin’s Kingbirds, which are common residents along the south coast, twice in six years of watching here. By the end of the watch, I had counted 36 Western Kingbirds, which is respectable total for this location.

More swallows passed over. It was difficult to tell if a feeding flock that periodically appeared further up the canyon consisted of the same birds cycling back and forth through the watch area or were new migrants each time. I was only able to identify ten percent with certainty: Cliff, Violet-green and Barn. I suspected that most of the flock comprised the first two species. A flock of Band-tailed Pigeons and a few Eurasian Collared Doves also headed up-slope.

A few Ash-throated Flycatchers moved through and I began to see some warblers. There were several each of Yellow-rumped and Orange-crowned, the commonest two early-season warblers, along with one or two each of Wilson’s, Nashville and Black-throated Gray. I was very happy to see the last two species “on-time” after the bizarre spring of 2025 when warbler migration was an incredible three or four weeks late and with low numbers.

Half-a-dozen Lazuli Buntings passed up-slope – a high enough count to trigger the ebird filter! This is one species that occurred in record numbers in spring 2025 and is presumably enjoying a population boom due to the massive areas that burned to north in recent years. It will be interesting to see the counts we get if we get favorable weather later in the month.

The Refugio Canyon “mid-canyon area”

By about 9.30 AM, the up-slope movement had died off and, as is my custom, I drove down to an area midway down the canyon, where the canyon woodlands are somewhat narrower and act as a funnel for birds moving up. There are inevitably lingering migrants down here and in May and June, this is a productive area for vagrants. In recent years, multiple Northern Parulas and Red-eyed Vireos have been seen here, along with Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Tennessee and Chestnut-sided Warblers. It should be noted migrants, including rarities, can occur along pretty much the whole length of the canyon and I sometimes walk down to here from the watchpoint, birding along the way.

I soon found a few more warblers with Nashville, Townsend’s and Black-throated Gray all giving nice looks. Vegetation-wise, this has been a very early spring due to the heavy early winter rains followed by a sunny, warm January, February and March. As a result, the oak catkins, which are very attractive to insects and warblers, are long gone. It seems this spring, most warblers are up in the sycamores.

After only hearing a couple of individuals in the watchpoint area, I got a good look at “Cassin’s Vireo”, one of those gray-backed birds that are generally regarded as dull, worn Cassin’s but which I wonder might be a part of a intergrade population with Plumbeous Vireo. Some “icing on the cake” to the migrant show were nice looks at a couple of the local breeders: a male Black-chinned Hummingbird and a Canyon Wren.