109th annual ‘Christmas Bird Count’ coming to Del Mar
and Carmel Valley area

By Lee Schoenbart

Photo: Eric Kallen

Even though it takes place between Dec. 14 and Jan. 5, the National Audubon Society refers to the Jan. 4 event in and around Del Mar/Carmel Valley/Rancho Santa Fe as one of the circles in its annual Christmas Bird Count.
Officially, the society calls it the 109th Christmas Bird Count: Citizen Science in Action.
Locally, Robert Patton, the count’s lead compiler of data and organizer since 1996, said, “Even though [the circle is] called Rancho Santa Fe, it’s actually a 15-mile diameter circle that goes all the way from Torrey Pines to Cardiff and back as far east as Lake Hodges and Miramar Reservoir.”
The first Christmas Bird Count, an early-winter bird census, was on Christmas Day in 1900 where thousands of volunteers across the U.S. went out over a 24-hour period to count birds for the National Audubon Society.
In the 21st century, Canada and 19 countries in the Western Hemisphere now participate in the count.
Volunteers follow specified routes through a designated 15-mile diameter circle counting every bird they see or hear. It’s not just a species tally. All birds are counted in the circle for an indication of the total number of birds. Some ardent home observers make advanced arrangements with their local compiler to simply count the birds at their feeders. Each count is conducted in one calendar day.
“If the count can be done in a reasonably consistent way, over the years, then we have a much better idea of the trends in bird numbers because there’s only a few of the formerly-listed endangered species that get any kind of monitoring sponsored by government agencies, so it’s only the volunteers doing these counts that are able to provide that kind of information on a broader basis,” said Phil Unitt, curator of the San Diego Natural History Museum’s Department of Birds and Mammals.
When prompted to give readers a hint about birds to be found in or around the Ranch, Unitt noted two species, the sage sparrow, plus a wintering guest, the sandhill crane, which seemed of particular interest.
“We look for every species and we look to find as many species as possible,” said Unitt, author of The Birds of San Diego County and editor of Western Birds, the regional journal of ornithology for western North America.
“We look for every species and some species that have more restricted distributions within the circle and a special effort would be made for those,” he said. “For example, the sage sparrow occurs at only a couple of places within the Rancho Santa Fe count circle and people would know to make a special effort at those sites.
“The sandhill crane does not normally occur in San Diego County and this is the first time that it looks like one may stay through the winter,” Unitt said. “It’s in the San Dieguito Valley upstream of El Camino Real in the horse ranch and agricultural area.”
“Right now there’s been a sandhill crane spending the winter, which is typically a very rare species in San Diego,” added Patton, a self-employed biologist who does contract work for the federal and state government on endangered species. “In fact, I’ve been birding in San Diego County since the late-1970s, and this is the first time that I was actually able to see one within the county, so this should be the first count that we’re able to get that within the count period.”
Patton, who estimates the number of volunteers for the upcoming count between 40 and 50 people, said that previously 63 people paired up for a total of 32 groups. He said most of the birding takes place in the morning, around sunrise, and culminates with a lunchtime tabulation meeting.
“We’ll have a few brave souls that’ll start pre-sunrise to try to get owls,” he said with a chuckle, and noted that by 1 p.m., “most people call it a day at that point.”
During the compiling of data, he said, “we’ll do a reading off to see which species have been seen and which ones haven’t.
“It’s kind of exhausting when you’ve been tromping around all morning,” he said, “particularly if we have inclement weather like we may have this year, but then several of us will frequently go out in the afternoon and try to spot species that may have been missed or to cover some areas that may not have been covered well.”
Stating that Rancho Santa Fe, Del Mar and Carmel Valley are “key areas” in the circle, here’s what Patton said about the species volunteers might encounter around the communities.
“Del Mar has a range of habitats including offshore areas so, particularly like the weather we’re having now with the storm and high winds, you may have birds that are normally only seen well out to sea get blown close to shore,” he said, “so we typically try to have at least one person on the shoreline with a powerful telescope seeing what’s flying in over the waves.”
Then Patton mentioned the shoreline habitats, the beaches, the lagoon mouth at Torrey Pines and the bluffs.
“The residential areas of Del Mar, where we’ve got all those nice trees through there, can have several different species, particularly warblers and some rarer things like nuthatches or some of the different hummingbirds,” he said.
“Carmel Valley you’re getting more inland and so you have both the native sage and scrub habitats which include things like the endangered California gnatcatcher,” Patton noted. “You have riparian or streamside habitat with the willow trees where you’ll get a lot of warblers and we usually hope to find vireos, which are a group of birds that normally migrate farther south, but we can fairly regularly find one or two.
“Most of the interest within Rancho Santa Fe itself are the micro-warblers that come here for the winter,” he said. “Earlier in fall we had several rare ones show up near San Dieguito Park and San Elijo Lagoon. We’re hoping somebody will be able to find some. They’re little, tiny things and they move around and those eucalyptus trees are tall, so it’s always a challenge to find them and be able to identify them.”
Although its too late to add volunteers for the Jan. 4 count, Patton suggested, “Throughout the next year, if people are interested in getting involved, I would encourage them to check the Audubon Society and natural history museum Web sites and go on some of the local field trips so they get a feel for different habitats and what kind of birds might use them.”
While the distinguished Rancho circle does not have a chapter of its own, circle volunteers are a culmination of folks belonging to the Oceanside chapter, the Palomar chapter that handles the Escondido count and the San Diego chapter.
For bird lovers who just absolutely have to know the raw data, compilation results will be announced at 1 p.m. at San Dieguito Park, 1628 Lomas Santa Fe Drive in Del Mar.
To learn more, visit www.audubon.org/bird/cbc and www.sdnhm.org/research/birds/index.html.