San Simeon Pier - Pigeon Guillemot

San Simeon Pier

We just arrived back home in Fort Collins after ten days in California, including four days in Cambria. The trip to the Central California Coast was brief, along with one morning of window shopping in the Cambria, and two afternoons with the grandchildren at San Simeon Bay playing in the sand at William Randolph Hearst State Beach, I got  some birding in while everybody played in the sand. The most notable bird sighting for me were Pigeon Guillemot that were flying in and out of some

Pigeon Guillemot in flight

landing place under the pier. I was fortunate to get one shot with my camera from above on the pier that show a bird's wings extended and the distinctive white marking on the top side of the wings, and the extended red-colored legs. The birds beat their wings rapidly - they don't soar like the more graceful gulls suspended in air by the wind.

Assorted sea birds feasting

While trying to snap shots of the Pigeon Guilemots and Barn Swallows flying in and out of their resting places under the pier, Brown Pelican, assorted gulls, and Brandt's Cormorants made haste of small fish just beyond the off-shore kelp fields - diving pelicans and gulls swooping in to grab anything that didn't make its way into the pelican's mouths - the seascape the forescene to a backdrop of the golden coastline near San Simeon.

Santa Rosa Creek - Cambria Birding

The trail head sign

I slipped away from the grand kids for an hour or so in the morning last week to check out the Lower Santa Rosa Creek Trail west of Highway 1 in Cambria - it turned out to be a gem of a place for birding. The trail head is just off Windsor Drive on the left when you turn left at the stop light off of the highway. I walked less than half of a mile up the trail, but saw many birds among the trees, brush, and open areas along the trail - less than an eighth of a mile in, there was a small trail down to the creek that was free of poison oak that gave an open perspective to the sky above. I walked as far as the second rise in elevation and took a fork in the trail to the left before a bench at the top of that hill. I only had my 50-200 mm zoom lens, and no binoculars. There were many birds, lots of songs and calls, and too little time to sit and wait for repeated appearances along the trail. A bird listener would do better on this route than a bird looker. I think this location is a nice addition to those that are listed on-line for San Luis Obispo County on the Central Coast Birding Trail - a part of the American Birding Association's Birding Trails in North America link.

Identification of birds seen in the environs of Santa Rosa Creek and other drainages in the area: (a) Brown Pelican, (b) Double-crested Cormorant, (c) Heerman's Gull, (d) Western Gull, (e) Wimbrel, (f) Cattle Egret, (g) Brewer's Blackbird, (h) Red-winged Blackbird - Bicolored version, (i) American Crow, (j) Northern Mockingbird, (k) Scrub Jay, (l) blackbirds on Zebra (Hearst Ranch pastures along Highway 1, just north of San Simeon), (m) Barn Swallow, (n) Lesser Goldfinch (?), (o) Eurasian Collared-Dove, (p) Song Sparrow - California Coast variant, (q) Turkey Vulture, (r) Savannah Sparrow (?), (s) Stellar's Jay, and (t) Black-capped Chickadee. There also were Loggerhead Shrike (distinctive wing pattern, but flying away and not fast enough with the camera) and unknown red birds and other yellow birds (I couldn't get my automatic focus to work with birds perched on tall grasses. I should have pointed the camera at the ground below to get a range, and then focused on the birds.) 

A sampling of lower Santa Rosa Creek birds

The creeks runs down from the Coast Range west to the Pacific. In summer, the water is held back by sand dunes before it reaches the ocean and forms a small estuary ending in a pond. A Brown Pelican (a) was a regular there, angling for fish. Western Gull (d) and Heerman's Gull (c) were in significant numbers (as they were also up at San Simeon Bay), and it was a treat seeing a pair of Wimbrel (e) who flew in, hung around, and then flew off to the north. Greater White-fronted Geese were also present.

Two days later when driving on Interstate 5 near Williams, the rice fields had many Red-winged Blackbirds, Cattle Egret, Great Egret, and some North American White Pelican. The complex of wildlife refuges in the Sacramento Valley along the freeway are well marked - some time it would be worth stopping and looking, rather than making the shortest time between distances.