In my Freeway Birding book I recommend the suburban ranchettes west of I-5
at Orland as good place for YBMs...people feed their dogs outside inside
their fenced parcels and magpies never miss a bowl of kibble
On Sat, Jul 16, 2016 at 9:53 AM, Joel Geier <joel.geier@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi all,
Even though this is starting to look like a discussion of a "California"
species, as there have been no follow-up sightings of the reported
Yellow-billed Magpie along Hwy 97 in Klamath County, I appreciated
Shawneen Finnegan's and Harry Fuller's comments regarding the status of
this species in the wake of the West Nile virus.
In my various wanderings through the Sacramento & San Joaquin Valleys
and California's inner Coast Ranges going back more than three decades
to the time, this was generally a conspicuous and fairly common species
both in ranchland and in farming areas.
It's good to hear that Steve Berliner saw good numbers along Hwy 25
between The Pinnacles and Coalinga (part of one of my favorite routes to
Los Angeles, during my Berkeley years). But as an anecdote in the
opposite direction to Steve's:
Last month I took a meandering route from Berkeley back to Oregon, by
way of Alhambra Valley, Martinez, Vacaville, Lake Solano, Esparto,
Guinda, Cache Creek, Colusa, Princeton, Chico, and Orland before I
finally got on I-5 (more than seven hours after leaving Berkeley!).
Somewhere around Ordbend when I saw a couple of Yellow-billed Magpies, I
realized that the were the first ones that I'd seen all day.
That seemed strange compared with my experience in the 1980s, 1990s, and
2000s. So I appreciated Shawneen's comments, to give some context to the
odd dearth of Y-b Magpies.
Good birding,
Joel
--
Joel Geier
Camp Adair area north of Corvallis
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