Date: 4/8/24 3:24 pm From: Daniel Farrar <jdanielfarrar...> Subject: [sbcobirding] North Coast Migration
Hello SBCO birders, Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Daniel Farrar, I am a Snowy Plover Biologist monitoring and studying Snowies at Vandenberg Space Force Base. This is my first year working with plovers in California after 14 in Oregon. I'm also an avid birder so will be looking for oddities while at work but will generally not have time to count or do any real birding. I hope to stumble across some fun birds while I'm out there.
During surveys from Point Pedernales to Ocean Park this morning a stiff NW breeze led to my first day of real migration along the beach. CASPIAN Terns, CALIFORNIA Gulls, WESTERN Sandpipers and WHIMBREL were all moving in decent numbers. Other birds moving included CLIFF Swallows, Common MURRES and PIGEON Guillemots, with many of the latter having arrived at nesting sites. Surprisingly there was very little loon movement. However, last week on Thursday 4/4 during calm ocean conditions there were many hundreds on the water in the area around San Antonio Creek (mostly Pacific and Red-throated). The most notable birds today were a pair of BLACK Scoters at Pt. Pedernales. Seems to be getting late for that. I took a crummy digiscope for a record shot.
At Ocean Park what a difference a few days makes. After Nick reported a lack of gulls at the river mouth, today I was surprised by a large gull/tern concentration roosting at the rivermouth. It was comprised of roughly 400 to 450 birds. There were about 140 Caspian Terns, counting by tens. Gulls in the flock included about 200 Californias, 30 Westerns, two Herring, one (maybe two) Glaucous-winged and a large handful that I did not have time to sift through. Notably the adult BALD Eagle is still in the area. It flushed the water fowl when it landed on the old pilings.
Sadly most of the base is closed to public access so many of my sightings will not be accessible. If you do end up at Ocean Park please remember to respect the closed area for nesting Snowies. That said one could scope from the train tracks and see the gull roost reasonably well without causing disturbance.
Good birding and looking forward to meeting some of you afield!
