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Pomarine Jaeger
5 Feb 1994 ~60 nmi off Pt. Arguello |
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 Santa
Barbara County is a fairly large coastal county situated just where
the California coast takes a sharp eastern turn at Pt. Conception. From
here south the southern California beaches are mostly sandy and attract
sun worshipers in the summer. The town of Santa Barbara, and its college
suburb Goleta, are laid-back communities of sunshine, flowers, and Spanish
architecture. Santa Barbara County itself has a much broader spectrum of
habitats. It has coastal lagoons, extensive agricultural bottomlands in
the Santa Maria River valley, lots of oak woodlands and chaparral, and
mountain ranges topping out in pines at Big Pine Mountain (6828 ' elev
= 2101m). It has many vagrant traps along the coast, and numerous major
rarities appear on the county checklist (including the State's first Little
Curlew in ). Santa Barbara was among the original 27 counties and was then
significantly larger; Ventura County was created from its eastern stretches
in 1872. Its namesake island — Santa Barbara Island — stayed with Santa
Barbara County at this split, even though it is much closer to the Ventura
coast, creating anomalies in offshore lines for county birders. The other
Channel Islands assigned to Santa Barbara County are San Miguel, Santa
Rosa, and Santa Cruz islands [see the separate Channel
Islands page].
County birding statistics and links are on Joe Morlan's site. Paul Lehman's 1994 Birds of Santa Barbara County is the standard status & distribution reference. Jamie Chavez's Birding in Santa Barbara County is a good on-line introduction. |
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For Santa Barbara County my best local photos
so far are of pelagics; featured is an adult Pomarine Jaeger, one of 38
seen on this winter boat trip over deep ocean waters in hopes of rare winter
alcids (we glimpsed what were probably Parakeet Auklets but did not have
decent views). Because Pt. Arguello and Pt. Conception dominate geographically
at this corner of the shore where it turns eastwards, a huge swathe of
ocean is assigned to Santa Barbara County as the nearest point of land.
I have also chased and seen a goodly number of vagrants along the coast
of Santa Barbara County; here are two rare woodpeckers: Red-headed — a
major rarity anywhere in California (14 Sep 1988 at Goleta) — and White-headed,
of much more local interest in the lowlands (31 Jan 1988 at Lake Cachuma).
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| All photos & text © 2006 Don Roberson; all rights reserved. | ||
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