This morning I took advantage of the last day of Thanksgiving break to check some flowering trees around the depopulated UCSB campus, hoping to find some stuff which might stick around for the CBC. I mainly birded the northwest quadrant of campus, including the Coral Tree Cafe, bus loop, 'Old Gym Wetland,' Counseling/Career Services bottlebrush, Thunderdome tipus, and Student Health eucs/bottlebrush. I also did a very cursory look at Pearl Chase Park and the bottlebrush/aloe near the Chancellor residence.
The Nashville from the tipu lot seems to be sticking around for at least its third winter, assuming it's the same bird. I didn't see the Lucy's which stayed here the previous two winters alongside it (and haven't seen it on a couple prior checks this fall). I had a small but wide-ranging pack of Swinhoe's White-eyes seen at various spots in the NW of campus. There was also one Western Tanager in some eucalyptus north of the bus loop.
Lots of Eucalyptus are flowering, in roughly decreasing order: lemon-scented gum, blue gum, red ironbark, red gum, and red box. Most of the bottlebrush have a few flowers but not a ton, and weren't especially birdy. Only a few coral trees had any flowers. The tipus were reasonably active but not bustling. The sweet gums both by the campus bus loop and near where I live have just started to bring in some finches, too, so worth keeping an eye out for Siskins etc.
I've been trying everywhere I go and have continued to strike out on orioles. Hopefully some more are found before the CBC.
