Detecting 200 Bird Species in Santa Barbara County!
A few months ago, I decided to challenge myself to raise my bird life list for Santa Barbara County up to 200 species. I have been visiting the Santa Barbara area for almost as long as I have been living in California (~9 years at this point), but it was only when I started out as an undergraduate student at UC Santa Barbara in 2018 that I really was able to start exploring the area and looking for its bird life. Since then, I have thoroughly explored many of the region's open spaces and have gotten to experience the great plethora of bird diversity present in this unique part of California. The area has so many kinds of habitats: coastal scrub, chaparral, wetlands, shoreline, pelagic, grassland, oak woodland, riparian woodland, you name it! It is all here.
Up until this past Fall, my life list for the county was around 180 species, so I was very close to reaching my goal of 200. However, getting those last few birds meant looking for unusual birds and learning how to identify rarer species from morphologically similar ones. As a result, I greatly improved my birding skills and became much more active in this form of wildlife watching. On January 18th of this year, all this hard work and dedication payed off when I found my 200th species for the county: the Common Merganser. Along this journey, my favorite of the more unusual species that I saw were the Ferruginous Hawk, Summer Tanager, Little Blue Heron, Lewis’ Woodpecker, Burrowing Owl, Short-eared Owl, Sora, Wilson’s Snipe, Green-tailed Towhee, White-throated Sparrow and Lawrence’s Goldfinch.
After getting to know the bird life so well in Santa Barbara County and visiting other parts of California, it is my opinion that Santa Barbara County is one of the best counties overall in the state for birding. There are just so many different habitats in such close proximity to each other, virtually all North American bird groups are present at least part of the year, and both warm and cold weather species visit the region. If you live in California, are a passionate birder, and have not already visited the Santa Barbara area, I strongly recommend that you visit this region at some point.
Below is the list of bird species that made it onto the list. Birds were added to the list when they were detected by sight or sound by me. Non-native species counted.
• Lewis’ Woodpecker
• Acorn Woodpecker
• Northern Flicker
• Red-breasted Sapsucker
• Nuttall’s Woodpecker
• Downy Woodpecker
• Hairy Woodpecker
• Burrowing Owl
• Great Horned Owl
• Short-eared Owl
• Barn Owl
• Belted Kingfisher
• Eurasion Collared Dove
• Rock Pigeon
• Band-tailed Pigeon
• Mourning Dove
• Sora
• American Coot
• Turkey Vulture
• California Quail
• Wild Turkey
• Surfbird
• Sanderling
• Western Sandpiper
• Dunlin
• Least Sandpiper
• Short-billed Dowitcher
• Long-billed Dowitcher
• Willet
• Greater Yellowlegs
• Whimbrel
• Long-billed Curlew
• Wilson’s Snipe
• Black Turnstone
• Marbled Godwit
• Red-necked Phalarope
• Spotted Sandpiper
• Royal Tern
• Elegant Tern
• Forster’s Tern
• Bonaparter’s Gull
• Herring Gull
• Western Gull
• Heermann’s Gull
• Mew Gull (Short-billed Gull)
• Ring-billed Gull
• California Gull
• Black Skimmer
• Snowy Plover
• Killdeer
• Semipalmated Plover
• Black-bellied Plover
• Pacific Golden Plover
• Pigeon Guillemot
• Common Murre
• Cassin’s Auklet
• Scripps’ Murrelet
• Black-necked Stilt
• Pacific Loon
• Common Loon
• Red-throated Loon
• Eared Grebe
• Western Grebe
• Pied-billed Grebe
• Northern Fulmar
• Sooty Shearwater
• White-faced Ibis
• Brown Pelican
• American White Pelican
• American Bittern
• Little Blue Heron
• Snowy Egret
• Great Egret
• Great Blue Heron
• Black-crowned Night Heron
• Yellow-crowned Night Heron
• Green Heron
• Peregrine Falcon
• American Kestrel
• Merlin
• Common Poorwill
• Anna’s Hummingbird
• Allen’s Hummingbird
• Rufous Hummingbird
• White-throated Swift
• Vaux’s Swift
• American Wigeon
• Gadwall
• Blue-winged Teal
• Cinnamon Teal
• Green-winged Teal
• Northern Shoveler
• Mute Swan
• Mallard
• Northern Pintail
• Bufflehead
• Red-breasted Merganser
• Common Merganser
• Hooded Merganser
• Snow Goose
• Ross’ Goose
• Greater White-fronted Goose
• Surf Scoter
• Ring-necked Duck
• Greater Scaup
• Lesser Scaup
• Redhead
• Ruddy Duck
• Canada Goose
• Osprey
• Sharp-shinned Hawk
• Cooper’s Hawk
• Northern Harrier
• Ferruginous Hawk
• Red-shouldered Hawk
• Red-tailed Hawk
• White-tailed Kite
• Double-crested Cormorant
• Brandt’s Cormorant
• Barn Swallow
• Tree Swallow
• Northern Rough-winged Swallow
• Cliff Swallow
• Brewer’s Blackbird
• Browned-headed Cowbird
• Yellow-headed Blackbird
• Red-winged Blackbird
• Hooded Oriole
• Western Meadowlark
• Great-tailed Grackle
• Loggerhead Shrike
• Oak Titmouse
• Chestnut-backed Chickadee
• House Sparrow
• White-breasted Nuthatch
• Red-breasted Nuthatch
• European Starling
• Wrentit
• Canyon Wren
• Rock Wren
• House Wren
• Bewick’s Wren
• Marsh Wren
• American Robin
• Hermit Thrush
• Western Bluebird
• Townsend’s Solitaire
• Hutton’s Vireo
• Warbling Vireo
• Ruby-crowned Kinglet
• Dark-eyed Junco
• Lark Sparrow
• Lincoln’s Sparrow
• Song Sparrow
• Fox Sparrow
• White-crowned Sparrow
• Golden-crowned Sparrow
• White-throated Sparrow
• Green-tailed Towhee
• Spotted Towhee
• California Towhee
• Rufous-crowned Sparrow
• Savannah Sparrow
• Northern Mockingbird
• California Thrasher
• Blue Grosbeak
• Black-headed Grosbeak
• Summer Tanager
• Western Tanager
• Scaly-breasted Munia
• American Pipit
• Wilson’s Warbler
• Yellow Warbler
• Yellow-rumped Warbler
• Townsend’s Warbler
• Hermit Warbler
• Common Yellowthroat
• Nashville Warbler
• Orange-crowned Warbler
• Blue-grey Gnatcatcher
• Bushtit
• Cedar Waxwing
• California Scrub-jay
• Island Scrub-jay
• Common Raven
• American Crow
• Steller’s Jay
• Yellow-billed Magpie
• Lesser Goldfinch
• American Goldfinch
• Lawrence’s Goldfinch
• House Finch
• Purple FInch
• Ash-throated Flycatcher
• Western Wood-Pewee
• Pacific-slope Flycatcher
• Cassin’s Kingbird
• Tropical Kingbird
• Say’s Phoebe
• Black Phoebe
