Date: 8/16/26 10:54 pm From: Dave Compton via groups.io <davcompton60...> Subject: [sbcobirding] Area K and a tribute to Patrick McNulty
Hi everyone,
I was at Area K today, on the bluffs at UCSB, where there are still good numbers os shorebirds, but a low diversity. Matt Brady was there when I left, and I assume the lack of additional reports means he didn't see anything unusual, either. I recommend getting there soon, if you want to see shorebirds there this year, because it won't be long before everything dries up.
As I was walking back to my car, through the pull off just east of the driveway to the Environmental Health and Safety Building lot, I thought of Patrick McNulty, who 20 or 25 years ago (maybe more) found a Lark Bunting at this location while stopping in to see the shorebird show.
I received word recently that Patrick passed away on August 1. I don't have a lot of details on his passing, but it sounded relatively sudden. I have a lot of fond memories of Patrick. They all focus around birds, I suppose because that was the reason we knew one another in the first place. I remember meeting him for the first time at the Bird Refuge in 1993 or 1994, while I was talking to the late Helen Matelson. It was a completely random meeting of three people interested in birds, and may have been my first time realizing there was something like a local community of people who shared this new interest of mine. Helen and I were both birding with binoculars. Patrick walked up with his Spacemaster scope to look at the ducks and other birds. That may have been the first time I had seen one of those.
I would bump into him again at times both random and not so random. A few years after our first encounter, back in the days when it never occurred to any of us that walking all around the Santa Maria estuary in our Wellingtons could be a bad idea, we both showed up there one Saturday to chase a Buff-breasted Sandpiper. There was a small group of us that day, and we all saw the sandpiper. And at one point, slightly hunched over and peering back into the uplands through that same Spacemaster, Patrick noticed a Lark Bunting, my county bird. I guess finding Lark Buntings while looking for shorebirds was a theme for him.
Another memorable encountered was a planned one. We met at Shoreline Park in the year (12 years ago? more?) when Blue-footed Booby, a bird that was rare enough that I and many others had chased one at the north end of the Salton Sea, not so long before, was suddenly turning up all up and down the coast of Southern California. Patrick and I agree to meet at Shoreline with our scopes to scan the ocean in hopes seeing one. After probably an hour or so, we watched a Blue-booted Booby flying east a few hundred yards offshore. He was pretty happy about that. I was, too, and I was glad to pay him back for the bunting and share another county bird with him.
Also, I think he had a nice scope by then.
I recall that, as a UCSB employee for many years, Patrick was very interested in his UCSB list. I think his rule was that if you could see it from UCSB, you could put it on your list. That's probably one reason so many of our encounters were at Area K, where he found that bunting years ago. In later years, like many birders, Patrick became a lot less active in our mutual hobby. He was a sharp and well-rounded guy, and probably had many interests I don't know about, and I assume those kept him busy. But for many years he was a CBC stalwart, a constant and welcome presence in the community, and one of the regulars who had been birding for many years before I showed up with a pair of cheap binoculars. Patrick was a man of an unfailing even temperament in my estimation, and a man with a dry wit that was never cutting. I think every minute I was around him was one well spent. From his wife Betsy, via Patrick's friend and longtime UCSB coworker Joan Murdoch, I hear that there will be a memorial service on October 24 at the Loma Pelona Center at UCSB. Betsy says she thinks it will be at 2pm.
