Shirley Murphy - 330 Species
300th bird American Tree Sparrow at Swanton pond.
I was born in Jackson, Ca in 1936, we then moved to Richmond during the war years and I started school. We then moved to Hollister where I finished high school and started working for Bank of America. A couple of years later I transferred to B of A at Lake Tahoe. When I turned 21 I went to Harrah's where I dealt blackjack for 10 years. I then moved to Santa Cruz to be closer to my grandparents who were aging; that is when I went back to banking and started at County Bank of Santa Cruz. I worked 20 years and then retired in 1986. What do you do when you retire? First I took an archaeological class at Cabrillo but realized I was too old for field work so decided to volunteer my time. I started volunteering at the Porter Memorial Library and Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve in 1989--where I have been ever since. Although I worked on a lot of projects I will only mention one: bird boxes--we have 157 boxes and it takes several of us to gather the date once a week for 3 months during the breeding season. At the end of the season we send this to the Cornell Lab. For hobbies I like golf, but birding is my true passion, which I still do as often as possible. I have been a member of the Santa Cruz Bird Club so long I cannot remember when I joined.
Michelle Scott - 329 Species
Michelle caught the birding bug just prior to her 4 ½ year stint working at The Birdfeeder. She has also assisted with Snowy Plover surveys on the North Coast.
She likes to bird close to her home on the west side of Santa Cruz where she enjoys easy access to Lighthouse Field, Meder Canyon, UCSC Arboretum, Natural Bridges, Younger Lagoon, Long’s Marine Lab, Antonelli Pond and Wilder Ranch State Park.
Appropriately her email handle is Surf Scoter, Michelle is an avid surfer. Her most memorable county birds were the Grace’s Warbler and the Dusky Warbler with the Common Ground-Dove at the Homeless Garden a close third. She hit 300 for the county with the Buff-breasted Sandpiper at Struve Slough.
Jeff Davis - 329 Species
Jeff resided in Santa Cruz for seven years. Currently he lives in Fresno, CA . When he is in Santa Cruz County he spends most of his time birding from an airplane. He does aerial seabird surveys for UCSC under contract with the Department of Fish and Game. From 1992-95 he served as the onsite coordinator for the Big Sur Ornithology Lab. He is a former SCBC president.
He has some finds that were not accepted by the CRBC, including a Red-footed Booby, a White-tailed Tropicbird, and a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher. He terms these “quasi first county records.”
His most memorable county bird was a Lesser Nighthawk he caught in a mist net at Wilder that he describes as, “spectacular-such intricate plumage patterns, huge eyes and broad, gaping mouth.” His favorite place to bird was Meder Canyon because of its rural feel in the midst of the suburbs which was a pleasant diversion on his way up to the campus.
John Garrett - 329 Species
A native of Pasadena, California, and a birder since age 8, John Garrett moved to UC Santa Cruz in fall 2011 to study Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. That fall was exceptional for Eastern and Mexican passerines, and he probably saw more vagrants in his first few weeks in Santa Cruz than in ten years in Pasadena. In SoCal, John had mastered the art of parasitically latching onto birders who owned cars; he deftly employed these skills in Santa Cruz, begging incessantly for rides from Nick Levendosky, Alex Rinkert, and Christian Schwarz. He would not have reached the 300 Club by now if not for their generosity, and he cannot thank them enough for their patience and good company.
His favorite birding moments are most easily identified by the intensity of his cursing, such as the Watsonville Cuckoo Massacre, the Masked Booby that flew over the San Lorenzo River, or the evening he and Alex (along with David Suddjian and the Goldfranks) realized they were listening to an Eastern (not “just” a Mexican) Whip-poor-will in Aptos. In spring 2012, John joined Nick, Alex and Christian for a record-setting Santa Cruz Big Day of 166, and again with Nick and Alex in February 2013, reaching 168.
Breck Tyler - 324 Species
I’ve lived in and birded in Santa Cruz County for about 50 years. I am a long-time member of the SC Bird Club and served as the Programs officer for a couple of years. Early local bird memories include dippers on Boulder Creek (1976) and a Lewis’ Woodpecker on Back Ranch Road (1990). Unfortunately, due to loss of all my personal records, I don’t know exactly how many species I’ve seen in the county. But I just reached 301 species on eBird so decided to join this list. Frequent travel for work and pleasure (mostly birding) has led to many amazing avian encounters but also meant missing out on many of the county rarities over the years. Now semi-retired, I’m enjoying the chance to catch up. This year, I saw the white wagtail, missed the White-eyed Vireo, and visited the Loma Prieta saddle for the first time.
For the past five decades, I was an itinerant biologist studying seabirds throughout the Pacific, everything from pelicans and boobies in Baja to pelagic populations off California to ducks and alcids in the tidal waters of the Salish Sea. I still lead trips to census albatrosses and other tropical seabirds on Midway Atoll.
It has also been my great pleasure to teach bird-related classes for UC Santa Cruz, the University of Washington, and Northeastern University. I love sharing the experience of students discovering the joys of birding, developing their skills and confidence, and becoming fully-fledged advanced birders and scientists. My wife Martha and I have operated a bird
banding station at Younger Lagoon on and off for decades. Lots of great bird encounters but we treasure especially the company of the eager young trainees, some of whom have gone on to do great things for birds and nature around the globe.
Shantanu Phukan - 324 Species
Don Roberson - 323 Species
"Good fences make good neighbors" is an aphorism attributed to Robert Frost, even though his 1914 poem is a polemic against building walls. In my case, however, the invisible fence between Monterey and Santa Cruz counties, embedded in the old thalweg of the Pajaro River, has kept me happily confined south of the border most of the time. My forays northward from our Monterey home have been few indeed.
My first chase to Santa Cruz Co (SCZ) was on Christmas Day 1975 to see a Greater Pewee at New Brighton SB. It took me 42 years to get to 300, and Sheri Howe's yard has been a big help. We saw her Painted Bunting there in Nov 1995 and now her Broad-billed Hummingbird in Oct 2017 for #300. Along the way I chased and dipped on waaay too many rarities, but did have the good fortune to see the White Wagtail in Watsonville in Aug 1979 [then split as Black-backed Wagtail; I waited over an hour until it flew across the Pajaro River so I also got it on my MTY list...] and, of course, the greatest bird ever in SCZ -- Lois Goldfrank and Steve Gerow's Common Cuckoo in Watsonville in Sep 2012. Other highly ranked vagrants include Little Gull, Eastern Yellow Wagtail, Brambling, Dusky Warbler, and Eastern Whip-poor-will. My only contribution to SCZ is the county's first Murphy's Petrel offshore in April 1991 from a research ship.
It feels like I've driven up to Santa Cruz more times to give talks to the Santa Cruz Bird Club than to go birding there. But I've admired the quality of "The Albatross" for decades, and Santa Cruz is home to some great people. Nice to be a small part of this little club.
Liam Murphy - 323 Species
Christian Schwartz - 315 Species
Christian Schwarz is a mushroom enthusiast and all-round naturalist-weirdo whose habit of moonlighting as a birder has clearly spiraled out of control.
The corrosive ornithological influence of Matt "Matt Brady" Brady, Dr. Justine Stahl, The Entire Terrill Family, Amy "Pepperoni" Patten, The One They Call Oscar, and Adam "Egg Man" Searcy guaranteed his continued involvement in the world of birding.
He owes much of his bird-knowledge to mentors and facilitators of opportunity, especially Steve Gerow, Debi Shearwater, and Bob and Bernadette Ramer.
Extra gratitudinous-thanks to Nick Levendosky, Alex Rinkert, and John Garrett for teaching me, shuttling me around, and for your ever-enjoyable (and often pungent) companionship.
Heidi Sandkuhle - 311 Species
Well, my 300th species was the “Costa’s” Hummingbird that was seen at Scotts Valley High School—but that turned out to be a hybrid, but luckily, I saw my second 300th bird, a GOLDEN CROWNED KINGLET, the next week. So do I now have 300.5 species?
I have enjoyed birding almost my entire life. As a child, I attended Youth Science Institute at Alum Rock Park in San Jose (and surprisingly, my future husband was there at the same time!) These Saturday classes and fieldtrips really set my love for natural science in motion. There, I took the only birding classes I’ve ever had.
At San Jose State University, I met (re-met?) my husband, Richard. On a trip to a local park, he impressed me by pishing the birds right out of the trees! I thought, “I’ve got to marry this guy—he can call the birds to him!” Forty years later, he can still call those birds, and we enjoy birding together anytime we want. I also garden, and am restoring part of our property back to native plants. I also do quite a bit of quilting, and have exhibited my work in Great Britain, Australia, Arizona, Texas, and California.
Any trip we take usually involves at least a couple days of birding, and we want to do that a lot more in our retirement.
But in all honesty, I never would have accomplished the 300 species goal without chasing all those birds that are found and shared by all the fabulous members of the birding community. I appreciate their sightings, and the gracious sharing of them, and their knowledge every time I go out to bird. So, thank all of you for the help.
Matt Brady - 309 Species
Matt moved to Santa Cruz in September, 2001 to start his undergraduate studies at UC Santa Cruz. There he quickly met up with David Vander Pluym, who introduced him to the wonders of Monterey Bay's pelagic bird life. He and David birded Santa Cruz extensively, making forays to Pt Reyes, Big Sur and South San Francisco Bay. Eventually, Matt started an internship at the Big Sur Ornithology Lab, which launched him on a career as a traveling field biologist. Despite working in such exotic locales as Costa Rica, Ecuador and Southeast Farallon Island, he has always maintained a fondness for Santa Cruz County birding. Though it took him almost eight years, magic number 300 came in the form of a Cook's Petrel during the unprecedented "invasion" of Summer 2009.
Matt has an almost Zen-like approach to birding in the county: enjoying the rarities he has seen, and maintaining calm over all the ones he has missed. Birds like Oscar's Dusky Warbler, the Gray Catbird, a spring Baltimore Oriole (his best self-found bird in the county) and two Crested Caracaras, among many other highlights, have helped him at this task. His favorite place to bird in the county is Wilder Ranch State Park, a place that feels rife with possibility.
Jeff Manker - 306 Species
I grew up in Southern California where my mom asked me to identify some birds in my backyard when I was 6 with the Golden Nature Guide she had given me. They were probably House Finches, but when Mom told me how smart I was, I was hooked.
I have lived in different parts of the state and birded everywhere I lived, but only started keeping an organized list when I began with eBird in 2012. That was the year that I developed and started teaching a year-long high school Ornithology class at Gilroy High School. I taught that class for five years. That helped me develop a relationship with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology for whom I have written curriculum, co-authored articles for education magazines and spoken at education conferences about birds and birding. When I retired from 32 years in the classroom, I gave myself the title “Ornithangelist” because it is still my mission to get more people birding so we can save our precious planet.,
I was the short-lived President of the Board of the Monterey Bay Birding Festival until COVID hit and we almost retired the festival.
A few highlights are the rarities and uncommon birds that I found in the county for myself, Cassin’s Kingbird, Ring-necked Pheasant, White-winged Dove, Northern Waterthrush, American Dipper, Common Poorwill, Yellow-breasted Chat, Burrowing Owl, Lapland Longspur, Prairie Falcon and Phainopepla.
In 2022 I moved to Alameda, CA where I have immersed myself in the local birding community and continue my mission of ornithangelism.
Oscar Johnson - 305 Species
Oscar has been a birder since the age of 5 when he was introduced to it by his father. Traveling widely in Central America and across the United States, even at a young age encouraged his enthusiasm for birding. He moved to California in 2004 with his family, at which point he started enthusiastically birding across California, including making occasional trips to Santa Cruz County. In fall 2008 he moved to Santa Cruz to attend University and stayed there until graduating in early 2011.
His favorite find was a second county record of Dusky Warbler at Antonelli Pond, followed by a fly-over Red-throated Pipit at the same location the following day. However, his favorite day of birding occurred on 15 Oct 2006 while on a pelagic trip on Monterey Bay, when seven species of shearwaters were found, including a Great Shearwater, a Streaked Shearwater and three Manx Shearwaters, along with the added bonus of a Brown Booby.
Elias McKown - 305 Species
I grew up in Santa Cruz County, and have been interested in birds, amphibians, and reptiles for as long as I can remember. My dad and I tried our first big year in 2022 after the COVID pandemic lockdowns, and I saw my 300th species, Red Crossbill, at Quail Hollow in 2023. My favorite bird was - a light morph Rough-legged Hawk flyover that was seen by 4 people before disappearing east, was seen at the homeless garden during a birding seminar at school.
I appreciate all of the help, advice, and tips by the many amazing birders in Santa Cruz, including but not limited to: Abram F, Abe B, Pete S, Norman U, Paul H, the Davids, Gary M, Brad K, Michael, Sharon H, Lois G, and Alex R (and my mom and my sister, June, for agreeing to chase birds in far-flung corners of the county). I also enjoyed watching the bird banding at Younger Lagoon, where I was lucky to see a Palm Warbler and Blue Grosbeak in hand, and was welcomed by all the amazing people working there. I did a lot of fun birding with my friend, Alex Keitt, who helped me identify birds, especially by ear. I’ll get you one day Kentucky Warbler, Worm-eating Warbler, and Ovenbird!
Editor's note: Elias is the youngest ever member of the 300 club.
David Vander Pluym - 301 Species
David moved to Santa Cruz in September of 2011 where he attended UC Santa Cruz for the next several years. There he quickly met up with Matt Brady and the two of them would make birding trips in and around the county as often as they could. If one didn't feel like birding that day the other would quickly convince him he was wrong and should go birding that day, which greatly helped on the road to 300. Soon they were able to encourage others to attend as well. Though others regale of the vagrants of the Big Sur coast David would often prefer to wander the north coast of Santa Cruz county instead (which explains some holes for his Monterey County list!). Despite having moved away and traveled/worked extensively across the country as well as in Central and South America, David remains fond of Santa Cruz and tries to get there every couple years despite now living on Arizona's "west coast" along the Colorado River where he now serves on the Arizona records committee and enjoys birding an extremely under birded area.
David's favorite birding location in Santa Cruz is Monterey Bay itself where he was a frequent leader for Shearwater Journeys. His favorite day of birding Santa Cruz was the eight shearwater day (Matt and Oscar seem to be forgetting a species...) including finding the Streaked Shearwater and refinding the Great Shearwater in Santa Cruz. Also the Cook's Petrel "invasion". His most frustrating day of birding was chasing Oscar's Dusky Warbler, which ended up being a heard only. Other favorite birding locales include the north coast of the county with its agriculture fields and riparian strips, and the sloughs of the south county where an independently found Hudsonian Godwit was his 300th county bird (finally!).