[OrangeCountyBirding] Mountain Chickadees

Mountain Chickadees have been expanding their breeding range in lowland Orange County for the last 20 years beginning with the first known lowland OC breeding record in 2003 at O’Neill Regional Park here in Rancho Santa Margarita by Marshall Iliff. The first coastal OC breeding record was in 2006 at Harbor View Nature Park in Newport Beach by Peyton Cook, and the species continued to expand its summering range throughout the late 2000s and 2010s throughout lowland OC in other cities like Lake Forest, Mission Viejo, Laguna Hills, Laguna Woods, Laguna Niguel, Dana Point, Irvine, and Anaheim to name a few, with documentation of breeding happening more and more as the years have gone on. I believe Zachary Perry found the first breeding record at Laguna Niguel Regional Park in 2015, and Robert McNab has documented breeding at his house in Laguna Niguel more or less annually for years. 

All of which is to say that your report is another dot on the ever-expanding map of Mountain Chickadee’s summer range in Orange County.