Self-guided Birding Locations
Visit a historic ranch setting while birding in the Santa Teresa foothills in south San Jose. The Bernal-Gulnac-Joice Ranch offers visitors the ability to go back in time and re-visit life on the Ranch during the late 1800s/ early 1900s. And there is always a wide variety of raptors and songbirds in this easy-to-access portion of the Santa Teresa County Park.
Wintertime is an especially wonderful season to spend in the lush green Bay Area foothills, as well as enjoying the wintering birds. Chesbro Reservoir provides a location where you can do both. It’s a peaceful, less-crowded location where you can just stop and exhale. An excellent spot to view both a variety of waterfowl and raptors, there are also small shorebirds, woodpeckers, and brush inhabitants. Chesbro Reservoir is located 3 miles west of Morgan Hill.
During spring along the Stile Ranch Trail, located in Almaden Valley, you’ll find species of birds that aren’t widely found in other areas of Santa Clara County such as Horned Lark and Grasshopper Sparrow, as well as a variety of wildflowers. As you ascend the trail up the south-facing hill you’ll get great views of the hills of Santa Teresa, Almaden Valley, and of Mount Umunhum and the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Explore this oasis in Gilroy! The levees along settling ponds with varying amounts of water and vegetation attract ducks, shorebirds, raptors and more. This site is never crowded and has no hills, just level dirt roads, easy for walking and driving.
May to June, Western and Clark’s Grebes are taking care of their downy young. You can see babies on their parents’ backs as well as juveniles on their own in the water near their parents. Calero Reservoir in San José south of Almaden Valley can be a fairly easy place to watch them.
This small section of Santa Teresa County Park, located in San José, offers a variety of habitats including oak woodland, grassland, sage scrub, chaparral, riparian, and freshwater seeps, attracting a larger variety of birds than would a single habitat. My favorite of these birds arrives in the second half of April: the Lazuli Bunting, whose song is a complex series of jumbling notes. I get goosebumps when I hear the first bird of the season singing his song.
In the heart of Garlic-growing Gilroy, this jewel of a park has some really top-notch, natural river habitat for both birds and kids to enjoy. The oak-bay woodland on the park’s namesake, Christmas Hill provides plenty of places to explore steep trails with older kids, but even very young children can enjoy the birds on the lawn and in the trees at the playground area. The combination of well-maintained city park and immediately-adjacent wildlife habitat makes this park perfect for a family outing… but the restrooms are CLOSED ON SUNDAYS.
En el corazón de la zona de cultivo de ajos de Gilroy, esta joya de parque tiene un hábitat natural de ribera de primer calibre a lo largo del arroyo de Uvas Creek para que lo disfruten tanto los niños como los pájaros. El bosque de robles de la bahía en el homónimo del parque, Christmas Hill, ofrece muchos lugares para explorar, senderos empinados con niños de mayor edad, pero incluso los niños más pequeños pueden disfrutar de las aves en el césped y en los árboles en el área de juegos. Todos, jóvenes y mayores, humanos o vida silvestre, se sienten atraídos por la belleza de un río natural. La combinación de un parque de la ciudad bien mantenido y un hábitat de vida silvestre inmediatamente adyacente hace que este parque sea perfecto para una excursión familiar… pero los baños están CERRADOS LOS DOMINGOS.
Old Oak Glen Avenue in Morgan Hill is a wonderful place to peacefully look at spring migrants. There is oak woodland on one side of the road, and Llagas Creek along the other. Swainson’s Thrush is often found here, a hard-to-find bird in our area.
January through March, Western and Clark’s Grebes are performing their spectacular courtship displays. Calero Reservoir in San José south of Almaden Valley can be a fairly easy place to watch them.
Picnic at the shady Live Oak Group Area near the Anderson Lake County Park Visitor Center in Morgan Hill and get a chance to view Wood Ducks in Coyote Creek.
Disfrute de esta área de picnic con sombra en Morgan Hill y tenga la oportunidad de ver Patos Arcoiris (Wood Ducks) en Coyote Creek.
Lined with tule, cattails, willows, and cottonwoods, Parkway Lakes is a part of the Coyote Creek Parkway located in South County. You will travel south along the Coyote Creek riparian corridor looking and listening for breeding songbirds, water birds, and raptors.
The agricultural fields of the Coyote Valley floor in South San Jose/Morgan Hill are excellent birding for raptors and grassland specialties. A popular stop is Laguna Ave, where with luck you can watch courting Red-tailed Hawks, Golden Eagles, Peregrine Falcons, and more! This trip is best done by car or by bike as it involves scanning long sections of fields along roads.
This string of Gilroy parklands is good for getting up close to our wintering riparian and oak woodland birds, making it especially good for beginning or intermediate birders. The parks are popular but the best birding areas do not get much traffic. Public riparian areas are hard to find in the south county but this one is a fairly long stretch that is easy to access.
This fall and winter, visit the grassy hillsides of the Rancho San Vicente entrance to Calero County Park in San José. Enjoy the wide open skies and beautiful views while looking for raptors and Rock Wrens.
Ogier Ponds is a quiet, birdy, freshwater haven located in Morgan Hill along the Coyote Creek Trail. It is the perfect spot to visit during fall and winter to look for wintering waterfowl, gulls, and sparrows.
No matter the season, Coyote Valley Open Space Preserve (CVOSP) in Morgan Hill is a great place to discover local favorites or special migrants. In fall and winter, this preserve is a perfect spot to watch for resident and migrating raptors, wintering sparrows, and agricultural-field specialties.
This summer, you will probably find yourself looking for a shady place to enjoy local birds. The Nature Trail at the Anderson Lake/Coyote Creek Visitor Center in Morgan Hill is a favorite of mine to bird year-round, and great in summer for the ample shade along Coyote Creek. Though parts of this route may be narrow, it is a less traveled trail and thus easy to avoid crowds!
