The southern California coast is a deservedly renowned hotspot for birdwatchers, a place where birds of colder northern waters mingle with a fascinating mix of warm-water birds. In places along this coast the movements of migrating birds are nothing short of astounding. And the southern coast offers a number of important, though now much reduced, estuaries and coastal marshes that attract a scintillating variety of species that somehow manage to cope with the onslaught of development and pollution.