Birding the Morro Bay Estuary

Photo: Feeding Frenzy Morro Bay by Steve Schubert

Identify many of the migratory, over-wintering, nesting, and year-long resident bird species that occupy the many diverse habitats here on the Central Coast. Practice bird watching skills that rely on observing characteristic field marks, bird behavior, and the acquired skill of ‘birding by ear’.

Participants will observe and identify passerine (perching) birds, shorebirds such as sandpipers and plovers, waterbirds such as ducks, geese, loons, grebes, gulls, pelicans and cormorants, long-legged waders such as herons and egrets, and birds of prey, including the famous locally nesting peregrine falcons at Morro Rock and sightings of fish-hunting osprey over the bay. The annual Morro Bay Christmas Bird Count ranks among the highest counts in North America for the numbers of bird species found within a 15-mile diameter count circle, and the annual Big Sit birding survey overlooking Morro Bay from the Elfin Forest is also nationally renowned.

Take a virtual field trip to Morro Bay estuary and its 48,000 acre watershed.  Morro Bay's coastal salt marsh, mudflats, estuary, beach, dunes, and associated upland watershed are recognized as vital feeding and resting habitats for thousands of birds migrating along the Pacific Flyway, arriving and departing from as far away as the arctic tundra to the north and the Neotropical rainforests to the south. Make stops at several of the publically accessible and popular birding locations along the perimeter of the bay, including Morro Rock, the Heron Rookery, State Park Marina, the Elfin Forest boardwalk and Audubon Overlook in Baywood Park, and the Sweet Springs Nature Preserve in Los Osos.