Drove down to the Pajaro River mouth this morning, on a hunch that the sudden cool weather might drop a bunch of migrating landbirds.

The offshore fog/dense marine layer appears to have been enough to sufficiently disorient some southbound migrant warblers especially, and the shorebirds pond at the end of Shell Road (limited public access) was amazingly dense with warblers.

I'd never felt so fully surrounded and overwhelmed by birds in Santa Cruz as I did this morning. I encountered Yellow, Orange-crowned, Townsend's, Common Yellowthroats, Yellow-rumped, and one Tennessee Warbler, with a total of 77 individual warblers in the small area of the pond, entrance road, and back pond.

The back pond area is especially interesting by virtue of the presence of some native plants I rarely encounter elsewhere in the county. Hoita macrostachya, Bidens laevis among them.

Posted on September 30, 2017 12:42 AM by leptonia