KIMBALL GARRETT, 5 JULY 2024 @ PDWP

The Antelope Valley is a unique slice of northern Los Angeles County (which is America’s “birdiest” county, with some 527 bird species). A westernmost extension of the Mojave Desert, it has a fascinating mix of desert and foothill species, as well as waterbirds at the county’s premier inland wetland site, Piute Ponds (along with other ponds and reservoirs). But massive urban development, increasing aridity, large-scale renewable energy infrastructure, and ongoing abuses of the land from off-road vehicles, illegal dumping, and human-caused fires have radically changed the landscape over the past several decades.
In this presentation Kimball Garrett will talk about some of the interesting features of bird biogeography in the Antelope Valley, including many striking changes in bird distribution and some stellar rarities that have turned up over the years. He’ll also touch on recent community science efforts such as the Los Angeles County Breeding Bird Atlas and eBird, and how they can play a role in addressing the region’s many critical conservation issues
Kimball Garrett grew up in the Los Angeles area and began birding in earnest in the mid-1960s. He has collaborated with Jon Dunn on Birds of Southern California: Status and Distribution (1981) and A Field Guide to Warblers of North America (1997), with Jon and Brian Small on Birds of Southern California (2012), and with Jon, Brian and Dave Quady on Birds of Northern California (2015). Since 2000 he and Guy McCaskie have co-edited the seasonal reports for the Southern California region for North American Birds. He has done stints on the California Bird Records Committee and the board of Western Field Ornithologists, is a Fellow of the American Ornithological Society, and has been the full-time Ornithology Collections Manager at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County since 1982. Kimball has enjoyed birding in the Antelope Valley since the early 1970s, and in February 2019 he and his wife Kathy Molina moved “over the hill” to Juniper Hills where they live with their dogs, sheep, and chickens.

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Kimball Garrett is awesome.