Urban Birding

As confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Stanislaus County continue to double every eight days, it has earned the distinction of becoming the county with the third-highest rate of transmission in the state.  Orders to stay home and avoid all unnecessary travel remain firmly in place.  Locals seem to be interpreting this in quite a few different ways, especially those of us accustomed to making regular trips out into the wild lands in search of birds and blooms.  But for the time being, Eric and I choose to err on the side of caution, take ourselves off the roads and away from public restrooms and gas stations, and quite literally stay home and within walking distance of home.

Thus restricted, I'd like to take you along with me on a little evening urban birding walk through the university campus in my town.  (Note the presence of a man-made object in every photo!  ...And that these photos were all taken in the fading light of evening, which doesn't agree with my camera!)

Male Western Bluebird, perched on an electrical box.

The campus of CSU Stanislaus has been near and dear to my heart for years; I grew up within walking distance of its shady lawns and duck ponds, learning to ride a bike and roller skate up and down its several miles of pathways.  The school is my alma mater, where I spent five happy years studying zoology, botany, ecology and agriculture (among many other things I have not retained nearly so well in my memory!)  After marrying my college sweetheart, we moved into an apartment across the street from the campus (where he also now teaches), and fell into the routine of walking our dogs there twice a day.

It was then that I began to discover the great diversity of bird species (around 90, so far) that can be found in and around the trees, shrubs, lawns and ponds of the well-landscaped university campus.

We have since moved away from our little apartment, but we still live within two miles of the beautiful university campus and return to it regularly to enjoy walking among its trees, ponds and birds.  And it has become an especially important place to me now during this time when "real" wilderness is temporarily inaccessible.  It pales in comparison to the winding rivers and verdant riparian forests that some birder friends of mine live near, and has nothing on the vast and gloriously wild wetlands and grasslands only a short drive away.  (Let's not even talk about Monterey Bay or the Sierra Nevada mountains, both a day trip away, or I might actually cry!)  But it is something, and something I am very thankful for.

A Black-Phoebe perches on a small covered walkway over Willow Lake.

Many birds do surprisingly well in urban environments.  As long as their basic needs of food, water, shelter and nesting sites are met, they will find a way to survive and even thrive, particularly species that are habitat generalists and those able to cope with some level of human disturbance.  City parks and areas like landscaped college campuses often provide enough of these basic elements to attract a fair number of birds.  Some species, like Rock Pigeons and European Starlings, thrive alongside humans and are found in higher numbers in cities and areas of human habitation than in natural habitat!  Corvids and gulls benefit from the abundance of human-generated garbage readily available in cities, and species like Cliff Swallows and Black Phoebes readily take to nesting under building eaves, ledges and bridges.

The campus of CSU Stanislaus is a lush mosaic of well-watered lawns (and the resultant dripping pipes and puddles), artificial streams and ponds; groves of tall evergreen trees, mid-story fruiting and insect-attracting trees, and foundation shrubs covered with nectar-rich flowers; out-of-the-way corners with brush piles and debris; bridges and buildings with myriad nooks and crannies for nesting; and even a few precious "wetland" areas of native reedy vegetation.  It is an oasis for urban birds in an otherwise highly paved and plowed part of the Central Valley.

Gorgeous Cedar Waxwings, in Chinese pistache trees outside the science building.

In the southeast corner of the campus is the Trans-California Pathway, an eight-year-old landscaping project installed to illustrate how plant communities change as one travels from the Valley floor east up into the Sierra Nevada.  Some of the plantings have met with more success than others, but the assemblage of low elevation plants, those native to our area, have done quite well and are a decent place to find "good" birds, like Spotted Towhee, Fox Sparrow, Hermit Thrush and Lawrence's Goldfinch.  The west end of the pathway begins in a thirty-year-old grove of Valley Oak trees, which is a great place to look for interesting birds.  Just recently, I found a Red-breasted Nuthatch and Blue-gray Gnatcatcher here, and it is almost a guaranteed spot for Nuttall's Woodpecker.

This Golden-crowned Sparrow was munching on a piece of dropped white bread along the Trans-California Pathway.

My second-favorite spot on campus for scoping out birds is the vicinity of the science buildings.  "Willow Lake," the most natural-style pond on campus, is lined with cattails and buttonwillow, and a hedge of native plants, including toyon, coyote brush, manzanita and mule fat, borders the west side of the pond.  The pond is an ideal place to find Great-tailed Grackles (you really can't miss them!), Black-crowned Night-herons, Great and Snowy Egrets, and, if you're really lucky, the occasional Green Heron.  Check the hedgerow of native shrubs for Bushtits, Orange-crowned Warblers and White-crowned Sparrows.

A Snowy Egret in the reeds of Willow Lake, alongside an unfortunate piece of plastic pollution.

The next pond we'll explore, "Warrior Lake," is spanned by an attractive stone bridge, which is the annual nesting site for a couple hundred Cliff Swallows.  Grasses around the lake provide nesting habitat for ducks and coots, and the open water is favored by visiting Double-crested Cormorants and Pied-billed Grebes.  I've even seen Ruddy Ducks and Belted Kingfishers around this pond on occasion.  Canada Geese abound.

Cliff Swallows in their mud nests under the bridge.

Large expanses of lawn across the campus provide foraging habitat for American Robins and Yellow-billed Magpies year-round, and American Pipits during the winter months.  Along the edges of the campus, there is enough open grassy habitat to attract the occasional Western Kingbird, and a handful of gopher-hunting raptors.  American Kestrels and Red-tailed Hawks may be spotted year-round, while Swainson's Hawks join them spring through fall; Red-shouldered Hawks and Merlin visit from fall through spring.

An American Robin checks out the lawn from the vantage point of this concrete pad.

Tucked behind "the classroom building," Village Lake is a quiet pond, complete with its own island, where a pair of Canada Geese are nesting; thirty yards away, along the shore, is a second nest.  The rocks along the edge of the pond have been a reliable place to spot migrating Spotted Sandpipers, and pairs of Black Phoebes have staked out just about every corner of the lake!  The tall pine trees surrounding the pond are favorite roosting sites of Great Horned Owls, which do surprisingly well in urban environments; a couple of years ago, a pair successfully raised two owlets here, feasting on an abundance of rodents and ducklings!

At dusk, listen for Great Horned Owls!  We spotted this one on top of the classroom building's antenna.

The Quad area and surrounding trees at the center of the campus are good places to look for the most typical urban birds, House Finches, Northern Mockingbirds, Mourning Doves and California Scrub-jays.  Cedar Waxwings particularly like the hawthorn, ginkgo and mulberry trees, while Western Bluebirds seem to favor the Chinese pistache trees.  Upon hearing the cheerful song of a male House Finch, I scanned the tops of all the trees I could see, without finding the bird.  It wasn't until Eric pointed him out that I spotted him: a beautiful red male House Finch, singing his heart out while perched on the third story of extensive metal scaffolding engulfing the library.  The epitome of a successful urban bird.

As the sun begins to set, a male House Finch sings lustily from the very top of three stories of scaffolding!

There is another productive grove of trees (and a few more lawns and ponds) around the music and art department buildings, which is a good place to find Yellow-rumped Warblers, Dark-eyed Juncos and Lesser Goldfinches.  There are a few Deodar cedars in the area that are the winter home of a Red-breasted Sapsucker each year.   Flowering patches of autumn sage, bottlebrush, strawberry trees and blooming eucalyptus trees are boldly defended by male Anna's Hummingbirds.

A male Anna's Hummingbird busily working a foundation planting of autumn sage flowers as dusk fell.

There are lessons we can all learn from staying home this spring.  One of them is that nature takes a variety of forms and is all around us, from our own backyards to city parks and university campuses.  All of it is beautiful, all of it is valuable.

While you're at it, check out Cornell University's project, Celebrate Urban Birds and get started entering your own urban bird data to contribute to science!

A dazzling blue male Western Bluebird - one of my favorite birds, urban or otherwise!