While everyone else was watching the Rose Parade on television or nursing a headache from New Year's Eve festivities, we birders woke up and hit the ground running. Of course, some of us had already been awake for hours listening for owls and the pre-dawn calls of marsh birds, but most ventured out at daylight to scour every corner of our Count circle in search of birds. Heaving a sigh of relief that there was NO RAIN (despite draconian forecasts by weather experts), Santa Barbara birders went to work counting all the species to be found from the Pacific Ocean on the south to Gibraltar Reservoir on the north, and from Ellwood on the west to San Ysidro Road on the east.

In scouting before the Count, it appeared that the unseasonably cold weather and heavy rains in mid-December might have driven many birds further south, thus curtailing numbers in our region. In spite of this, and due to an incredible effort on the part of everyone involved, we were able to pull out 210 different kinds of birds in the 24-hour period allotted to the census.

The "stake-out" birds that we knew about beforehand were ticked off early in the day: two Long-tailed Ducks in the harbor, the Vermilion Flycatcher and Eastern Phoebe (returning for a second winter) at Ocean Meadows Golf Course, Tropical Kingbirds at Devereux Slough and the Bird Refuge, a Lewis's Woodpecker in Montecito, and five species of geese: Ross's, Snow, Cackling, Canada, and Greater White-fronted!

Canvasback with Lesser Scaup, Rancho Goleta Lake, early morning. Photo courtesy Liz Muraoka.

More goodies were discovered on Count Day. It turned out that the blooming eucalyptus trees and ornamental hedges in Isla Vista harbored 5 Orchard Orioles, a Hooded Oriole, and a Baltimore Oriole. Other Baltimore Orioles were located at Devereux and at the Municipal Golf Course. Scott's Orioles were discovered at the San Marcos Trout Club and in Montecito. All in all, it was an oriole sweep.

Other interesting birds found on Count Day were a Palm Warbler in the Goleta agricultural fields, and an American Redstart in Hope Ranch.

Townsend's Warbler; Courtesy Dianna Ricky	Allen's Humming Bird; Courtesy Dianna Ricky	Yellow-rumped Warbler; Courtesy Liz Muraoka

There are always a few "misses" - birds that we had hoped to get but that didn't show up on Count Day. Among these were Northern Pygmy-Owl, Townsend's Solitaire, and Greater Scaup. And only finding ONE Wilson's Snipe (formerly Common Snipe) was a little shocking considering all the marshy habitat about!

Some species of birds have been termed "irruptive", meaning they can show up in numbers one year and be absent the next. This year Red-breasted Nutatches, normally a montane species, were to be found everywhere. This didn't apply to other montane birds, however, unless you count Pine Siskins, which showed up sporadically at certain backyard feeders.

As you can imagine, organizing and compiling this monster Christmas Bird Count is a daunting job, but with superb helpers like Joan Murdoch, Rebecca Coulter, Jared Dawson, and Dave Compton, everything went incredibly well. Bill Pollock's ability to crunch all the numbers into an invaluable computer version of the Count is essential. And Patrick McNulty kept track of all the rarities for us before the Count, so we knew where to look on Count Day. A huge thanks goes to these fabulous volunteers!

Volunteers meeting at Goleta Pier at noon. Photo courtesy Liz Muraoka.

And how did Santa Barbara stack up against other CBCs in California and nationwide? We came in second in California, behind a high San Diego CBC total of 218 species. And, of course, the two big Texas Counts at Mad Island Marsh and Guadalupe River Delta were way ahead of all of us with totals of 235 for the former and 222 for the latter. Freeport, our "used-to-be" rival, had only 204 species.

At the end of the day, it's the camaraderie and fantastic spirit behind the Santa Barbara Christmas Bird Count that has made it so famous. We are known for our excellent habitats for birds, our top birders, and the accuracy of our Count. Santa Barbara Audubon can be proud of another successful effort, and we thank them for their generous support and encouragement.