Patch-birding will lead to better understanding of how our local birds use different parts of the landscape from year to year and season to season, which may be more useful than knowing how often birds stray far off-course.

Over the course of 8 years, Robb Hamilton has birded about 800 times at Colorado Lagoon, a cozy little body of water in Long Beach, recording 228 species out of the 246 that have been reported on eBird, and photographing the different species.

By achieving good coverage of the lagoon throughout the year, and across multiple years, Robb has been able to capture inter-annual variability, and has established the baseline conditions ahead of a major change in the configuration of the lagoon — the opening of a large channel between Alamitos Bay and the lagoon, which will greatly increase the tidal flushing of the lagoon and increase the area of native habitat available to the birds. Ultimately, Robb intends to collect several years of post-channel data and compare it with the extensive pre-channel data already collected.

Born in Santa Barbara, Robb Hamilton has been birding since he was 15. He’s been an independent biological consultant since 1994.