Date: 12/30/25 5:15 pm From: <iseekbirds...> via groups.io <iseekbirds...> Subject: [slocobirding] Santa Maria-Guadalupe CBC Preliminary Results
All:
I'm still going over the data, but preliminarily it looks like we had 144 total species. In terms of rarities, we had a Long-tailed Duck, a Eurasian Wigeon, Snow Geese and a Ross's Goose. The Vermilion Flycatcher at Jack O'Connell Park ended up being a challenge as there was a basketball tournament and the parking lot was full and people were everywhere. Luckily, one of the Vermilion's was found over at the Guadalupe Water Treatment Plant.
The storms that occurred earlier in the week definitely mixed things up. The Santa Maria River mouth sand bridge blew out and instead of having a nice estuary, we ended up with a huge muddy area. We weren't even sure that we would be able to get in to do the count. The park was closed all day Friday and Saturday. Muddy conditions forced us to walk to some locations that we usually can drive to. Some farm roads that we use to check out ponds and lakes were impassable. One brave crew (Sarah Toner and Larry Chen) was able to log 109 species on Count Day! Probably not that unusual for the south coast, but up here it's unheard of.
Thanks to all those who participated. Looking forward to 2026!
