I won’t be doing a Carpinteria Birdwatchers Zoom meeting in November. I previously accepted an offer from Santa Barbara Audubon to be the speaker for their November program, and prepping for two programs in the same week, at the same time I’m busy with preparations for the upcoming Christmas Bird Count, turned out to be…

After deciding to cancel last year’s Christmas Bird Count due to COVID-19, I’m very excited to be going forward with this year’s count. This year the Carpinteria CBC will happen, and it will happen on Saturday, December 18, 2021. If you were signed up for last year’s count, you should already have received an email…

Our next group outing has come up quickly. On Saturday I will lead a walk at the Carpinteria Bluffs from 8 a.m. – 10 a.m. We’ll see what’s in the grassland, at the flower fields, and take a quick look at the beach and ocean from the harbor seal pupping site. Hope to see you…

For our next Carpinteria Birdwatchers online meeting we’ll talk about big things: Big Years, Big Days, Big Sits… all the ways birders find to make birdwatching more competitive and exciting. Carpinteria Birdwatchers fully supports everyone’s right to bird as casually as they want to, and even casual birding can be super exciting. But it’s fun…

Our next group outing will be at the Carpinteria Salt Marsh Nature Park. A schedule conflict in late September means I need to push this outing to early October, but on the plus side that puts us in the thick of fall migration when anything could show up! 🙂 — John Callender Location: Carpinteria Salt…

September’s Carpinteria Birdwatchers online meeting will be about cormorants: Those slightly goofy but fascinating birds you see flying, swimming, and diving at our local shores and wetlands. We’ll talk about which species you can see, where to see them, and how to tell them apart. Due to a scheduling conflict I have this meeting will…

I recently received an email from local birdwatcher Diane Knowles. She was concerned about a drop-off in the numbers of small birds she was seeing in the Carpinteria downtown area. With her permission I’m reproducing our exchange below. — John Callender Subject: Carp birds To: [email protected] From: Diane Knowles Hello! I’m a bird lover and…

Our next group outing will be at Toro Canyon Park. It’s a quiet location where we should be able to hear lots of oak woodland and chaparral birds and see how the Merlin app’s new Sound ID feature does at identifying them. Location: Toro Canyon County Park, 576 Toro Canyon Park. Date/time: Saturday, August 21, 2021, 8:00…

For our next online meeting we’ll talk about birding by ear and the new “Sound ID” feature of the Merlin bird identification app. We’ll also discuss the ethics of using recorded playback to attract birds. It should be a fun topic! Special guest: Hugh Ranson. The meeting will take place via Zoom and YouTube livestream…

My apologies, Carpinteria Birdwatchers members. I’ve been distracted (by birdwatching, among other things) and overlooked the rapid approach of tomorrow’s third Thursday of the month, when we normally have our monthly Zoom meeting. Since I don’t have a topic prepared I’ve made the decision to cancel this month’s meeting. We’ll take a break in July,…