Date: 9/25/26 11:41 am From: Florence Sanchez via groups.io <sanchezucsb11...> Subject: [sbcobirding] UCSB Beach, September 25
I checked out the east-facing beach starting from the steps at the north end of Lot 6. The tide was coming in but there still was plenty of room for a lot of shorebirds. Once again, the highest tides have removed most of the Kelp wrack but it didn't seem to matter. Beach joggers were a bit of a problem but the birds always seemed to return in spite of being flushed.
Again, the dominant large shorebird species was Marbled Godwit. with individuals more than double the number of all other large shorebirds combined. Least Sandpipers are still the most numerous small shorebird, but Western Sandpipers and Sanderling numbers have increased a lot since the last time I birded at this location. New species at this spot was Dunlin, of which I think there were two. One appeared to be darker than the other.
After leaving the beach, I went to NCOS to see if I could turn up the Brewer's Sparrow reported there. Lots of bird activity in the area from which it was reported, but I could not find it this morning.
Kingbirds were putting on quite a show in the trees behind Whittier Pond. AS they flew back and forth, I counted 4 Cassin's Kingbirds and 1 Western Kingbird. Then those numbers doubled as suddenly the entire flock took off from those trees to a large distant Eucalyptus by the new housing development.
As they flew by, I could see that one had a forked tail and another birder who was using Merlin said that the software picked up a Tropical in the flock as well as the other species.
Florence Sanchez
