With less than a week to go I’m getting excited about next Saturday’s Carpinteria CBC. Some of the things I’m excited about:
The weather forecast — Current predictions are for relatively good weather on count day, with light winds and a chance of some light rain moving in later in the day. Fingers crossed the rain stays away until we get our birds!
The coverage — If we can carry out our current assignments, we’ll cover more of the Carpinteria CBC circle in this year’s count than ever before, with great teams in the harder-to-reach areas:
- Hugh Ranson is heading up the group on R/V Channelkeeper to get our pelagic birds
- Linus Blomqvist and Rob Farber will drive out on the causeway to do a seawatch from the normally off-limits Rincon Island
- Steve Colwell will be birding the area of Romero Saddle to try for our count’s first-ever Mountain Quail. I know they’re up there!
- Kim Stackpole and Ken Gluck will be covering the parts of the Franklin Trail north of the 1-mile mark, including the especially birdy areas along the 1913 Trail and Sutton Creek
- Jenny Slaughter, Crissy Slaughter, Craig Murray, and Alan Prichard will be spending the night at Jameson Lake so they can start bright and early on count day
- Mario Borunda and Andrea Bruce plan to hike in from the Matilija trailhead to bird Murietta Canyon in the eastern part of our circle, a location we’ve never covered before
The scouting — Spencer Seale is a Ventura-based birder who works in and around Carpinteria and often finds great birds when he’s in the field or on his lunch break. Unfortunately he’s one of the Ventura birders we won’t have on our count this year because of the Carp and Ventura counts being scheduled on the same day, but he’s been making up for it by finding lots of great rarities during pre-count scouting, including:
- A subadult male Vermilion Flycatcher in the campground at the mouth of Carpinteria Creek. This bird has been there since Spencer found it back on November 22. If we can find it on Saturday it will be the first time this species has ever been seen on our count.
- An Eastern Phoebe at Lake Jocelyn, which we assume is the same bird that wintered there last year. If we get it this year it will be only the third time we’ve had this species.
- A Pacific Wren Spencer found this morning at the Bates Road Bridge over Rincon Creek. This is another species we’ve only had twice before on the count.
- A Tennessee Warbler that Spencer found this afternoon in a cape honeysuckle hedge in the northwest part of El Carro Park. This would be a first for the count if we can get it.
The following tools should help on Saturday:
- The scouting/tally spreadsheet — Use this to keep track of the birds we’ve seen and the birds we still need to find. If you put the Google Sheets app on your phone you can view and update the spreadsheet in the field. Or you can just view it in your mobile phone’s web browser, which won’t let you update it but will let you browse the updates made by others. If you don’t want to enter updates yourself, you can make sure the spreadsheet gets updated by submitting your eBird checklists as quickly as possible and sharing them with the “CarpCBC” eBird user.
- The Carpinteria CBC Hotline — This year we have a special phone number you can use to stay informed on count day. Linda Callender and Mary Mascolo will be reprising their role from last year, fielding calls and processing checklists to make sure the tally spreadsheet is up to date throughout the day. So call them at (805) 364-2499 to check in, tell them what you’ve seen, and find out what’s still out there to be found. This will be especially helpful if you’re unable to submit your eBird checklist quickly, so they can use your verbal report to enter your species in the tally spreadsheet.
More about all this is on the 2022 Carpinteria CBC Instructions page.
Thanks everyone! See you at the tune-up Zoom meeting on Thursday night, or in the field on Saturday!
— John Callender, Carpinteria CBC compiler