The Ojai Valley

Story by Tom Maloney, executive director, Ojai Valley Land Conservancy

Ojai’s rural nature and abundant open space provide visitors with many opportunities to see the birds of Southwest California. Our conservation lands present plenty of options to find chapparal, woodland and more montane birds. However, like most arid regions of the Southwest, for diversity, Ojai is a “just add water landscape.” Bird diversity really jumps around water and a few spots provide opportunities for these species as well. The following spots in the Valley and further afield offer great spots to go birding.

Ojai Meadows Preserve

The Ojai Valley Land Conservancy’s 58-acre preserve next to Nordhoff High School is so convenient that it’s worth a visit. Winter and early spring migration are the best times of year. The small pond can hold wintering American widgeon and green-wing teal in addition to the more regular mallards and American coots. The restored oaks and coyote bush provide habitat for white-crowned sparrows, western bluebirds, acorn woodpeckers and wintering yellow-rumped warblers and ruby-crowned kinglets. Thanks to the restored habitats, spring migration can be really fun and the “Meadows” is always a good place to check for migrants headed north.

Lake Casitas

Lake Casitas offers visiting birders with a chance to see water birds not normally found in the rest of the Valley. Western grebes are abundant as are a good complement of diving ducks such as bufflehead. Egrets and herons (black-crowned night heron and great blue heron) and shorebirds can regularly be found. The campground and surrounding habitats can hold fun sparrows and other birds in the wintering season. Best to visit on a weekday since this is a very popular recreation area. There is a day use fee.

Matilija Dam and Floodplain Forest

For local birders, this is the premier birding spots in the Ojai area. The Dam site and the woodlands provide a diversity of wetlands and forest that are both scarce resources for migrant birds. The reservoir has largely silted in so there isn’t a lot of open water but what little there is can hold interesting ducks that you can pick out from the overlook on Matilija Canyon Road. The surrounding chaparral can have typical chapparal birds like rufous-crowned sparrow, wrentit and occasional black-chinned sparrows.

To watch birds in the woodlands, drive down past the dam overlook to the first flat spot and find an unmarked trail into the woods on the west side of the road. This can be an outstanding spot to find migrant birds resting and feeding on their long journeys.

Carrizo Plain National Monument

The habitats of the Monument represent the largest intact remnant of the once vast desert grasslands that covered the San Joaquin Valley. For birding, the winter and early spring are by far the best time to make the trip from Ojai. Impressive numbers of wintering raptors (ferruginous, red-tailed and occasional rough-legged hawks as well as prairie falcons and golden eagles) make the 1.5 hour trip from Ojai worth the beautiful drive from Ojai. In the early Spring, birders from all over try to find the elusive LeConte’s thrasher on the Monument.

ONE:

Hoagy Carmichael’s “I’m a Cranky Old Yank in a Clanky Old Tank in the Streets of Yokohama With My Honolulu Mama Doing Those Beato-O Beat-O Flat-On-My-Seat-O Hirohito Blues” entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s longest song title. The song, released in 1942, was made famous by “Der Bingel” Bing Crosby.

two:Carmichael, one of the most successful Tin Pan Alley songwriters of the first half of the 20th century, composed “Geor- gia On My Mind” and “Stardust,” and won an Academy Award with Johnny Mercer for “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening” in 1952’s “Here Comes the Groom.”

Carmichael frequented the Ojai Valley Inn in the post-World War II years, where he made a favorable impression on many people, including Rose Boggs, who was quoted in the Fall 2011 OQ, “He would sit down at the piano and we would sing.” Boggs remembered “slipping out of Ojai one evening to go on a double date with Carmichael and another couple. The foursome drove to Santa Barbara for filet mignon at the Pink Cricket” according to the Mark Lewis-bylined story.