Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve

Willet

Black-bellied Plover

Semi-palmated Plover

Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve is a 300 acre wetlands - a 'little pocket' of nature between the Pacific Coast Highway and the houses of Huntington Beach. During the Spanish occupation of the area it was ranchlands, home to wandering cattle and their watching vaqueros. In 1895 a Gun Club bought Bolsa Chica. The land was then leased to oil companies for drilling, with artillery mounts and bunkers being built during WW2. In 1976 Amigos de Bolsa Chica was formed to save wetlands from development, and the State of California purchased the land, which by then was pockmarked with oil rigs and wells, contaminated with oil, heavy metals, PCBs and mercury and blocked off from the sea.

Restoration work was undertaken between 2000 and 2006 and includes a new ocean channel, tidal basins, island habitats and pedestrian bridges that connect the wetlands to the beach via Pacific Coast Highway. Today it is a paradise for birds and birdwatchers. Nearly half of the birds found in the U.S. have been seen in Huntington Beach - and it is a prime staging post for migrating shorebirds.

Bird list:

Common Loon

Pied-billed Grebe

Eared Grebe

Brown Pelican

Double-crested Cormorant

Great Blue Heron

Great Egret

Snowy Egret

Reddish Egret

Mallard

Northern Pintail

Blue-winged Teal

Cinnamon Teal

Northern Shoveler

American Kestrel

Red-tailed Hawk

American Coot

Black-bellied Plover

Semipalmated Plover

Killdeer

Black-necked Stilt

American Avocet

Willet

Long-billed Curlew

Marbled Godwit

Ruddy Turnstone

Western Sandpiper

Dunlin

Short-billed Dowitcher

Long-billed Dowitcher

Ring-billed Gull

California Gull

Western Gull

Elegant Tern

Forster's Tern

Rock Dove

Mourning Dove

Anna's Hummingbird

Black Phoebe

Say's Phoebe

American Crow

Bushtit

Northern Mockingbird

European Starling

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Savannah Sparrow

Song Sparrow

House Finch

House Sparrow