Neary Lagoon
Tuesday I drove down to Santa Cruz with plans to do a little birding at various sites before my 2:30 P.M. appointment at Año Nuevo SR. The first stop was Neary Lagoon, a small 15 acre wetland in the middle of a residential area in Santa Cruz. I arrived at 10:15 and stayed for about an hour. It’s a very pretty site in a place where you wouldn’t normally expect to find one. I’m glad they preserved this much, though apparently about 60 acres of the original lagoon have now been filled in and built up.
Neary Lagoon is known for good waterfowl in winter, but winter leaves early in California, and the waterfowl were limited to Mallards, American Coots, and one presumably domestic-descended Muscovy Duck. I did, however, find some nice land birds including two California Quail:
I also found a dozen plus Cedar Waxwings. I hadn’t realized these were possible in the West. other notable birds included Bushtit, Steller’s Jay, Black-crowned Night-Heron, and Ruby-crowned Kinglet. (I looked very closely to make sure it wasn’t a Hutton’s Vireo. Then it flared its ruby crown at me and clinched the ID.)
Total species count for the site was 23 (not including the Muscovy):
- Mallard
- California Quail
- Black-crowned Night-Heron
- American Coot
- Mourning Dove
- Black Phoebe
- Steller’s Jay
- Western Scrub-Jay
- American Crow
- Bushtit
- Marsh Wren
- Ruby-crowned Kinglet
- American Robin
- Northern Mockingbird
- European Starling
- Cedar Waxwing
- Yellow-rumped Warbler
- California Towhee
- Song Sparrow
- White-crowned Sparrow
- Golden-crowned Sparrow
- Brewer’s Blackbird
- American Goldfinch
2007-03-20
