Little Big Day outing #6 – 4:11 p.m., Carpinteria Salt Marsh Nature Park

Duration: 47 minutes

Species: 40 (5 new)

Final total: 81

9 Mallard
7 Blue-winged Teal
22 Green-winged Teal
8 Bufflehead
4 Pied-billed Grebe
1 Western Grebe
1 Great Blue Heron
1 Snowy Egret
8 American Coot
1 Black-bellied Plover
2 Greater Yellowlegs
2 Willet
1 Marbled Godwit
4 Dunlin
4 Least Sandpiper
16 Long-billed Dowitcher
1 Ring-billed Gull
3 Western Gull
2 Anna’s Hummingbird
1 Belted Kingfisher
1 American Crow
2 Marsh Wren
2 Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet
1 Orange-crowned Warbler
3 Yellow-rumped Warbler
2 White-crowned Sparrow
1 Golden-crowned Sparrow
1 Song Sparrow
1 Lincoln’s Sparrow
4 House Finch

Final thoughts:

I ended up spending more time birding than I’d planned, which probably should have been predictable; once I start it’s hard to tear myself away. 81 species makes me happy, though there were a bunch that I missed that I should have had:

• Western Bluebird
• Killdeer
• Whimbrel
• Black Turnstone
• California Quail
• Mourning Dove
• Townsend’s Warbler
• Hairy Woodpecker
• White-tailed Kite
• Brown-headed Cowbird

I’ll get them next time.

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Little Big Day outing #5 – 1:55 p.m., my front yard

Duration: 3 minutes

Species: 6 (1 new)

Running total: 75

I paused on my way in from the car to admire the lesser goldfinches hanging upside down eating the seed pods on the sweet gum, and saw that one of them had stripes. Yay, pine siskin! So that meant another eBird checklist.

7 Eurasian Collared-Dove
2 Acorn Woodpecker
1 Cassin’s Kingbird
1 Yellow-rumped Warbler
1 Pine Siskin
3 Lesser Goldfinch

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Little Big Day outing #4 – 12:58 p.m., Carpinteria State Beach

Duration: 46 minutes

Species: 26 (9 new)

Running total: 74

It was windy at the beach, which slowed down the birding. Also, I cheated by driving there rather than riding my bike.

1 Mallard
1 Pied-billed Grebe
1 Horned Grebe
3 Double-crested Cormorant
1 Brown Pelican
1 Great Egret
1 Snowy Egret
1 Turkey Vulture
1 Cooper’s Hawk
4 American Coot
1 Marbled Godwit
2 Sanderling
12 Heermann’s Gull
3 Ring-billed Gull
35 Western Gull
19 California Gull
1 Glaucous-winged Gull
35 Royal Tern
11 Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)
1 Anna’s Hummingbird
2 American Crow
1 Orange-crowned Warbler
3 Yellow-rumped Warbler
1 Song Sparrow
3 Red-winged Blackbird
24 Brewer’s Blackbird

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Little Big Day outing #3 – 9:03 a.m., Carpinteria Salt Marsh Nature Park

Duration: 48 minutes

Species: 39 (23 new)

Running total: 65

(My original plan was to leave the marsh for later in the day. When I saw it was going to be at a 6.7 high tide early this morning, though, I figured I’d check it then for waterfowl. I’ll go back later today when it’s empty and see what’s out on the mudflats.)

9 Mallard
1 Blue-winged Teal
2 Green-winged Teal
9 Bufflehead
1 Red-breasted Merganser
1 Pacific Loon
1 Pied-billed Grebe
1 Horned Grebe
4 Western Grebe
2 Double-crested Cormorant
3 Brown Pelican
1 Great Blue Heron
1 Snowy Egret
1 Osprey
2 Willet
1 Marbled Godwit
30 Long-billed Dowitcher
7 Heermann’s Gull
1 Western Gull
9 Royal Tern
2 Anna’s Hummingbird
1 Allen’s Hummingbird
2 Black Phoebe
1 Say’s Phoebe
1 Western Scrub-Jay
3 American Crow
1 Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet
2 Northern Mockingbird
1 Common Yellowthroat
2 Yellow-rumped Warbler
9 White-crowned Sparrow
1 Golden-crowned Sparrow
1 Savannah Sparrow
1 Lincoln’s Sparrow
2 California Towhee
1 Spotted Towhee
4 Western Meadowlark
4 House Finch

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Little Big Day outing #2 – 7:15 a.m., Franklin Trail

Duration: 1 hour 35 minutes

Species: 41 (27 new)

Running total: 42

2 Red-shouldered Hawk
2 Red-tailed Hawk
3 Ring-billed Gull
4 Western Gull
228 Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)
2 Eurasian Collared-Dove
6 Anna’s Hummingbird
1 Allen’s Hummingbird
1 Acorn Woodpecker
1 Nuttall’s Woodpecker
1 Downy Woodpecker
2 Northern Flicker
4 Black Phoebe
1 Say’s Phoebe
4 Western Scrub-Jay
3 American Crow
2 Oak Titmouse
39 Bushtit
1 Canyon Wren
1 House Wren
1 Bewick’s Wren
3 Ruby-crowned Kinglet
3 Wrentit
2 Hermit Thrush
4 American Robin
1 California Thrasher
3 Northern Mockingbird
10 European Starling
1 American Pipit
9 Yellow-rumped Warbler
1 Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon’s)
2 Dark-eyed Junco
4 White-crowned Sparrow
6 Golden-crowned Sparrow
1 Song Sparrow
1 Lincoln’s Sparrow
7 California Towhee
5 Spotted Towhee
1 Brewer’s Blackbird
15 House Finch
2 Lesser Goldfinch
1 House Sparrow

Reposted from http://ift.tt/1V8MqWp.

Little Big Day outing #1 – 6:57 a.m., my front yard

Duration: 8 minutes

Species: 15

Running total: 15

1 Western Gull

1 Anna’s Hummingbird

1 Allen’s Hummingbird

1 Acorn Woodpecker

1 Black Phoebe

1 Cassin’s Kingbird

1 Western Scrub-Jay

3 American Crow

3 Bushtit

4 American Robin

1 European Starling

2 Yellow-rumped Warbler

1 White-crowned Sparrow

1 California Towhee

5 House Sparrow

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Let the little big day commence.

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It’s the season of Christmas counts. I did the one that I do, but I still feel birdy-ish. I want an excuse to do some more without the pressure/commitment of something major like another Christmas count or a conventional big day.

So I thought: What about a little big day?

The normal way an obsessive birder does a big day is to devote the whole day to it and spend a lot of it driving from place to place. I don’t want to do that, but a scaled-down version sounds like fun. So here’s my plan:

• A single day.
• 100% human-powered. Walking or biking only.
• I don’t want to bird dawn to dusk; I’ve got too much going on with work and the holidays. But I could do an hour each in the morning, noon, and evening, and then just incidental birding around the house during the rest of the day. So:
• 0700 – 0800: Franklin Trail (rural/chaparral)
• 1200 – 1300: Carpinteria Creek Lagoon and Carpinteria Bluffs (freshwater wetland/coastal sage scrub/rocky and sandy beaches)
• 1600 – 1700: Carpinteria Salt Marsh (coastal estuary)

I started listing species, and I think 70 should be pretty easy. With luck I could get to 80 or even 90. If I get all the likely species on my list plus all the “bonus” species that I think are reasonably possible, it gets me to 99.

So, you know, if magic happens: 100. Not that I expect that. It will be fun no matter what; that’s the best thing about birdwatching.

I realize this isn’t anything super impressive for a serious birder. But I’m pretty casual about it, so for me it sounds like a fun challenge.

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