By Terry Hunefeld
Oceanside CBC coordinator/compiler
from conversations with, and the writings of, Guy McCaskie, Paul Lehman and Phil Unitt
Leading a team on a Christmas bird count is great fun. If you're familiar with your assigned area, it's your opportunity to share your favorite haunts with other birders. if you're new to the area you're leading, it's even more fun, because you get to explore and learn new birding hotspots. Your count compiler will supply you with a list of past species seen and best birding spots in your area from past yeasr. If you're not a team leader, the information below will enhance your birding experience by sharing with you tips from some of the best birders in the country.
New and Returning Team Leaders: Brush up on How To Be A Great CBC Team Leader.
HOW TO DECIDE YOUR TEAM'S ROUTE
When assigned a new CBC area, pull out your Thomas Brothers Map and look for natural water in the form of ponds, lakes, reservoirs, streams and rivers – then go scout those areas. Today Google Earth gives a literal bird’s eye view of trees and vegetation. If time allows, scout and bird promising areas in your sector before count day to get a feel for what may be the most productive birding locations.
Study Google Earth for parks, cemeteries, schools, missions, and golf courses (think 2 species of bluebird, 3 species of tanager, 2 species of oriole, 3 species of kingbird, 5 species of sparrow).
Many urban parks have riparian and wooded areas with warblers, sparrows and woodpeckers. Cemeteries frequently have a wide variety of mature trees. Brushy fields are ideal habitat for sparrows. Dense chaparral harbor Fox Sparrows. On a quiet Saturday morning, the empty playing fields and brushy edges of school ball fields, parks and cemeteries will have pipits, robins, bluebirds (think Mountain Bluebird in the eastern circle) sparrows, juncos and towhees.
Look for quiet, established residential streets with flowering Eucalyptus or fruiting myoporum trees. Cul-de-sac streets or subdivisions with limited ingress and egress make it pleasant to walk down the middle of the street with little interference from traffic, looking for movement and listening for call notes. Profitable residential streets have irrigated lawns, limited traffic and an assortment of mature trees like deciduous ornamentals (orioles) pines (golden-crowned kinglets) and palms (owls). Profitable rural residential neighborhoods often have bird-rich thick hedgerows and Eucalyptus tree-lines separating the lots.
KEY POINT: After reading the information from past counts supplied to you by the compiler, a few hours of scouting or simply map-checking will always provide you with more interesting, curious and promising areas to focus on than you can possibly bird during count day.
WHERE TO BEGIN IF YOU'RE COUNTING IN AN URBAN OR RURAL RESIDENTIAL AREA
Birding urban and residential areas can be tremendously rewarding. Just ask Paul Lehman. Ever since he moved back to San Diego from the east coast he has been finding orioles, tanagers and "rare" warblers in residential neighborhoods, city parks and the edges of golf courses.
The past 25 years has seen the development and urbanization of much of Oceanside, Vista and Carlsbad. Chaparral and sage scrub countryside has been replaced by streets, shopping malls, schools and subdivisions.
But birds are everywhere.....
For example, while scouting for the Christmas Bird Count on December 12, 2008, I birded a park in a heavily urbanized area of Vista. There were Chipping Sparrows, Cedar Waxwings, Northern Flickers, a male Costa’s Hummingbird and a Sharp-shinned Hawk. Walking across a creek on a footbridge, I heard the “perpript!” call of a WESTERN TANAGER. Pishing brought out a male, then a female, then another male, then a female BULLOCK’S ORIOLE all in the same tree.
As Oceanside changes, so does the bird population. The Christmas bird count is valuable because it monitors these changes over the long term. Your participation in the count this season plays a decided role in decisions that will be made 20, 40, even 60 years from now as our grandchildren seek to understand the impact of urbanization.
THERE'S GOLD IN THEM THAR RESIDENTIAL AND COMMERCIAL NEIGHBORHOODS
Today much of our count circle consists of urban and residential neighborhoods teeming with wintering birds. Every sector has rich habitat that must be birded carefully. Parks, golf courses and residential and commercial areas offer three elements that attract a wide variety of birds in the winter:
1. FOOD. Some homes have multiple feeding stations that draw birds like magnets. Irrigated vegetation offers a diversity of fruit and flowers throughout the winter (think Costa’s Hummingbird & Cedar Waxwing). Several species of Eucalyptus trees are now flowering (think Bullock’s Oriole). Liquid Amber (American Goldfinch), birch and alder are attractive to Nuttal’s Woodpeckers. Pepper trees (especially numerous in cemeteries, golf courses and parks) provide sap for sapsuckers. Look for fresh rows of their holes. I found several red-breasted and red-naped sapsuckers this season in or near the Oceanside count circle, plus 2 yellow-bellied sapsuckers, simply by looking for fresh sapsucker holes.
2. SHELTER. Planting of ornamental trees and shrubbery offering both shelter and food for wintering birds has allowed certain arboreal species to spread into what was once treeless scrub (think Townsend’s, Black-and-white and Black-throated Gray Warbler, Ruby-crowned Kinglet). Nuttal’s Woodpeckers create cavities for House Wrens and Western Bluebirds. Eucalyptus trees provide excellent nest sites for birds of prey.
3. WATER. Wintering birds need water. A great man once said, “Follow the water.” Urban irrigation leads to lush gardens, then urban runoff, offering water were 20 years ago there was none. Many urban parks are located alongside or in riparian corridors where American Redstarts, Wilson’s, Orange-crowned and Yellow Warblers are waiting to be counted.
TIPS FOR BIRDING RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOODS
When walking neighborhood streets with binoculars, you’ll meet residents. Greet them with a smile and a hello. If they are curious or wish to talk, tell them about the Audubon CBC and ask them where in the neighborhood THEY see birds. They may take you to their back yard (or their neighbor’s) with 6 feeding stations.
When walking residential neighborhood streets, I wave and smile at slow passing cars and give a cheery “hello” to residents walking their pets or working in their yards, again engaging them in conversation if they seem curious, telling them about our 100+ year old annual Audubon Christmas bird count.
HOW TO FIND SECRET BIRD HANGOUTS
Ask folks you meet if there are any “secret” ponds or streams nearby. Kids know where the water is, and adults who jog or walk their pets do, too. You’ll be surprised at the wealth of information you’ll glean from neighborhood residents. Once they understand what you’re doing, most go out of their way to help, offering to show you their feeders, draw you a map or tell you about the flowering shrubs in the church backyard just around the corner.
The beauty of birding residential neighborhoods is that you never know what you’ll find, and the habit changes block by block. One or two blocks may be sparse with few birds, but walking around a corner can find a street with mature flowering trees, water and a raft of birds.
Sometimes you’ll find yourself looking at goldfinches through binoculars in a tree in someone’s front yard. People are naturally curious about what you’re doing. If you see someone indoors looking out the window, smile and wave at them. If a curious person is outside (and anybody looking at you looking into a tree with binoculars is curious about what you’re doing or seeing), just call out, “We’re doing a bird count for the Audubon Society and that tree has goldfinches and a hummingbird in it!” That one statement instantly transforms you and your doings into legitimate and interesting science.
While traveling through urban areas on the way to the residential neighborhoods and parks, check disturbed areas, dirt lots, weedy field and freshly graded areas for pipits and horned larks. Check edges for goldfinches and sparrows. Look up often for hawks, vultures, kites and falcons. All areas, but especially the eastern portions of our count circle, should watch for montane species like nuthatch, chickadee, titmouse, brown creeper, purple finch and mountain bluebird.
GO WHERE THE BIRDS ARE: BIRDING GOLF COURSES AND PRIVATE PROPERTY
Golf courses are often built around creeks or water. As a result they frequently have some good riparian habitat. Ponds have ducks and grebes. Shrubby edges contain sparrows, warblers, thrush, tanagers, orioles and possibly an empidonax flycatcher. In short, you want to get permission to bird these areas.
Golf course managers are concerned with liability and interfering with golfers. I’ve found that when you telephone or meet a manager and explain that you know how to stay out of the way of golf balls (if you’re a golfer, share this with them) and that you will get on and off early, you have a good chance of getting permission. Being sensitive to their concerns puts their minds at ease that they’re not going have “birdwatchers” aimlessly wandering around the fairways looking up at trees oblivious to golf balls and golfers. Stress that this is an official annual Christmas bird count for The Audubon Society (play the credibility and science card here) and that you’ll be “on and off the course in a jiffy - they won’t even know you’re there…”
If access to the course is denied, then ask if you may at least come on the property (if it’s a private course) and bird the ornamentals around the parking area and clubhouses which can often be rewarding. It’s hard for them to say “no” to that, and once you have permission to bird the parking lot, you can stop in, meet the manager again and thank him or her, and next year ask again to do just a “tiny bit of the course…”
DON'T OVERLOOK THOSE "WEEDY" EDGES AND VACANT LOTS - THEY'RE SPARROW GOLDMINES
Vacant lots and weedy edges contain areas important for Pipits, Horned Lark and Sparrows. Horned Lark were missed from the Oceanside Christmas bird count in 2003 and only 11 individuals were reported in 2007. Look for them in plowed fields, graded land in preparation for building, arid grasslands - disturbance enhances habitat.
You'll find lots of sparrows in these areas, too. Sort through the White-crowned Sparrow flocks for wintering Golden-crowned, White-throated and Chipping Sparrows (Chipping Sparrows were missed twice from the Oceanside count circle between 1999 – 2007, other years as few as one or two were counted). Remember to check those dry, sun-drenched, scrubby hillsides for Rufous-crowned Sparrow.
All these species of sparrow are here in Oceanside, Vista, Carlsbad and San Marcos all winter, they're just overlooked! Every neighborhood has vacant lots. Every commercial areas has scrubby weedy edges. Railroad tracks are sparrow hang-outs. Are you looking to see what unusual sparrows are hiding there?
Learn more about what birds are to be expected - and not expected - on the Oceanside CBC - and get some excellent tips from Paul Lehman while you're at it!
BIRDS ARE EVERYWERE
One year, after scouting a new sector that I was assigned for the Oceanside Christmas Bird Count (Prince of Peace Abbey in Oceanside in the bills behind the Oceanside airport) I took Foussat to Highway 76. While waiting for the light, I scanned the field just east of the Oceanside Airport runway at the northwest corner of the intersection. I saw some.... coots?
I turned the corner and pulled over on the very wide shoulder of busy Highway 76. Cars wooshed by, but at a safe (albeit noisy) distance. The field was still full of trash and probably had been dry for 11 months or more, but the rain had transformed it into a muddy slog with puddles and lots of mud. Stilts. Coots. Yellow-rumped Warblers. I grabbed my scope. There was a Killdeer.... and a pair of Long-billed Dowitchers. A closer look brought into view 5 American Wigeon. 3 Green-winged Teal. A bit of pishing brought a female Anna’s and a male Costa's Hummer into the tree right on the corner despite the roar of traffic behind me.
More pishing, then an American Pipit (only one American Pipit? how can that be?) popped up from the weeds. More pishing brought a gorgeous Lincoln's sparrow to the hummingbird’s tree. More scoping and there was a WILSON'S SNIPE, 2 Least Sandpipers, a Song Sparrow, 3 Savannah Sparrows (migrants, as would be expected outside of salt marsh – not Belding’s), a SeaWorld soccer ball, several beer cans, an old boot, a Wendy's frosty cup and a Super Big Gulp cup.
Not bad for a field that was probably dry as a bone 3 weeks prior. Who would have thunk it? Birds are everywhere - just follow the water and the tree with insects, flowers or fruit. . . .
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