I wandered around the highest peaks of South Vandenberg SFB today, hoping to see a stray nutcracker or a wandering flock of Pinyon Jays because I really want to understand where these birds are going, but I struck out. I had this thought that some of these birds might move as far west as Vandenberg, and possibly end up in the Bishop Pine forest on the higher elevations of south base. Bishop Pine is a closed-cone pine, so this wouldn't have been a reason to stick around IF any moved that far west (and I still think some are). There was a flock of about a dozen Band-tailed Pigeons near SLC-3 closer to the coast in the scrub habitat, which I thought was odd. Red-breasted Nuthatches were at a few places. Tranquillon Mountain had a couple of Western Tanagers and a Swainson's Thrush in the tanbark trees that grow on the north face. The most interesting observation was watching a begging juvenile Turkey Vulture being fed by an adult. This seems pretty late for a nesting bird, assuming this was hatched on south base somewhere in recent weeks. There is good habitat on south VSFB for breeding TVs.
