A Birder's Guide to Southern California

About this book

All serious North American birders eventually end up in Southern California. This is not due to Hollywood, Disneyland, or Malibu beaches. The vast, varied topography that is Southern California has recorded over 555 naturally occurring bird species, many of which are near endemics to its geography. Each of Southern California's many habitats offers its own specialties, and A Birder's Guide to Southern California will help you to find them all. Sooner or later, dedicated birders must come to Southern California. The birding routes, with instructions and exact mileages between suggested stops, guide resident and visiting birders to hundreds of birding sites. New to this edition are chapters covering Kern River Valley, the rugged Clark Mountain wilderness, southeastern California's Blythe region, Sespe Condor Sanctuary, coastal Ventura County, and birding hot spots in suburban San Fernando Valley.

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Biography

Receiving $5.00 from his grandfather in 1961 as a high school graduation present, Brad Schram purchased the newly published Second Edition of Peterson's A Field Guide to Western Birds and went birding. First introduced to bird-watching at age nine, he became part of the rapidly evolving world of high-velocity California birding in the 70s. Apart from a single year in San Francisco, he has lived in Southern California his entire life, residing thirty-eight of the last forty-one years in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties, birding his home county intensely. Birds have taken him, and his family, far afield. Since his early retirement from the business world in 1996 he has been a part-time tour leader for Victor Emanuel Nature Tours, leading birding trips in Southern California, Alaska and the American West, Trinidad & Tobago, Iceland, East Greenland, and Antarctica. Serving as a naturalist aboard small eco-tour cruise ships in Polynesia and Melanesia, Kamchatka and the Bering Sea, the Canadian High Arctic, Antarctica and the Scotia Sea, and the Chilean Fjords, has delivered him to amazing birds and adventures at sea and on scores of remote islands. He lives with his wife Dianne in rural Arroyo Grande.