Perhaps one of the best places to bird in all of southern California is Bolsa Chica. It’s an ecological reserve in Huntington Beach which I won’t dare attempt to rewrite here as there are far better Internet pages offering in depth insight as to what you can expect birding wise and also how expansive this area truly is. One place you can research this further is of course Wikipedia.org by clicking this link to the Bolsa Chica Eco Reserve. You may also want to review this web site for the California Dept. of Fish and Wildlife which also includes a link to a map in PDF format that is printable.
Here’s a link to ebird which shows the total number of species sighted on this walk bridge.
There are many entrances to access this area. In this section I will focus on the Walk Bridge section of the park which you can see from the map below it is on Pacific Coast Highway and north of Sea Point Street and south of Warner Ave. Depending on your direction of travel you can use these GPS coordinates (33.696389,-118.045278) to get to this location.
The parking lot is not very large and holds perhaps 30-40 vehicles. Admission is free and there are rest rooms (porta potties) in the parking lot.
The photos below are taken from the parking (signs) and also the walk bridge. if you opt to go to the other end of the walk bridge and follow along the fence there’s also good birding there as well.
