Winter Birding in Orange County

Trip Leaders: Eric Schroeder and Dawn Lemoine

Date: January 9–11 : 12 pm - 12 pm 

Description: Join us for some sunny winter birding in Southern California. We’ll be visiting the top three Bird hotspots in the county—San Joaquin Marsh, Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve, and Huntington Central Park—as well as a few other local favorites. Winter in Orange County is particularly good for ducks and shorebirds, as well as local specialties including Cassin’s Kingbird, Vermilion Flycatcher, Yellow-crowned Night Heron, Reddish Egret, and California Gnatcatcher. And, of course, there are the exotics: Pin-tailed Whydah, Swinhoe’s White-eye, Scaly-breasted Munia, and, of course, the parrots, particularly the Lilac- and Red-crowned Amazons.

Note that the price of this trip is for the bird tour component only—you are responsible for your own transportation, accommodation, and meals. If you don’t want to drive, you can fly roundtrip from Oakland or San Francisco to Orange County airport for about $250. There is a wide range of places to stay near the airport (10 minutes from San Joaquin Marsh) or closer to Huntington Beach where we’ll do the bulk of our birding on Saturday. (at Bolsa Chica and Huntington Central). For those interested, we’ll have a group dinner one night, otherwise you can choose from a variety of nearby restaurants for your meals.

Plan to arrive by noon on the 9 th . We’ll bird that day close to the Orange County Airport. We’ll spend all day Saturday birding in Huntington Beach and on Sunday we’ll look for local specialties we haven’t yet seen. We should wrap up our birding by midafternoon on Sunday. More details to follow once registration is complete.

Trip Price: $470 nonmember, $375 member  

Eric Schroeder is a former GGBA Board member while Dawn Lemoine is a co-compiler of the Oakland Christmas Bird Count. Together they oversee the GGBA Travel Program.