18 January, 2024
Costa’s Hummingbird (Calypte costae) graces the cover of the 2024 Monterey Audubon Society calendar. Photo by Dan Marks.
For the second year in a row, IBCP is pleased to partner with Amanda Preece of the Monterey Audubon Society and photographer extraordinaire Dan Marks on a new calendar! The 2024 calendar features birds of Monterey County, one of the richest counties in birds in the state of California, with nearly 500 documented species.
MacGillivray's warbler (Geothlypis tolmiei). Photo by Dan Marks.
Featured birds include familiar residents, such as the Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus), and more elusive species such as MacGillivray's Warbler, pictured above, which nests in dense thickets along the Carmel River in the Santa Lucia mountains. In addition to birds that nest in Monterey, the calendar features wintering birds such as the Whimbrel (Numenius phaeopus) and Least Sandpiper (Calidris minutilla), as well as a vagrant Indigo Bunting, pictured below.
Indigo Bunting (Passerina cyanea). Photo by Dan Marks.
In his book, Monterey Birds, author Don Roberson describes how patches of cypresses, pines, and willows along California’s central coast, particularly at headlands, act as “vagrant traps” for disoriented songbirds during fall or spring migration. Vagrant traps in Monterey County include Point Pinos and the mouths of the Carmel and Big Sur rivers. The Indigo Bunting’s native range includes eastern North America but individuals, such as the singing male pictured here, occasionally turn up in Monterey before we hope they eventually find their way home again.
Dan Marks photographing shorebirds.
If you are interested in joining Monterey Audubon Society in their bird awareness and conservation work – and getting a calendar! -- please contact their wonderful Environmental Advocate, Amanda Preece, to find out more about their field trips, conservation activities, and monthly meetings. May the love of birds’ beauty inspire us to learn more about them and how to help them thrive, in Monterey, California, and all over the world!
Western Grebes (Aechmophorus occidentalis) perform a courtship dance. Photo by Dan Marks.