Date: 3/1/26 8:34 pm From: <tgmiko...> via groups.io <tgmiko...> Subject: Re: [CALBIRDS] [OrangeCountyBirding] Jim Pike, an Orange County original, passed away February 2026
I am very saddened to read this. Jim and I had a mutual friend: the late
great Dharm Pellegrini--who also worked on cowbird control at Prado.
Jim quietly corresponded with a lot of birders about their
sightings--giving input and kudos.
Tom Miko
Claremont 91711
909.241.3300
On Sun, Mar 1, 2026, 7:33 PM Ryan Winkleman via groups.io <rswinkleman=
<gmail.com...> wrote:
> Of interest far beyond Orange County...
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: Thomas Wurster via groups.io <wurster...>
> Date: Sun, Mar 1, 2026, 5:51 PM
> Subject: [OrangeCountyBirding] Jim Pike, an Orange County original, passed
> away February 2026
> To: OCBirding <OrangeCountyBirding...>
>
>
> Orange County birders and beyond,
>
>
>
> It is with great sadness and heartbreak that I share that Jim Pike passed
> away on February 17, following his diagnosis less than a month before with
> an aggressive cancer. Though Jim was a respected member of the Orange
> County birding community for over 40 years, many will know him only through
> his posts to the OC Birding list serve, where he reported a steady stream
> of rarities, and regularly urged community action to save our park and
> neighborhood trees and plant cover from excessive pruning and removal. Jim,
> with his life partner Kim, moved to Huntington Beach from Wisconsin in
> 1983. Soon after Jim began his OC birding career. His impact was immediate
> with locals asking, “Who is the “new kid on a bike” who keeps reporting
> rare birds?” Shortly thereafter Jim was fully integrated with the area’s
> avid birders.
>
>
>
> Jim was very keen in the field and has a string of “County Firsts” to his
> credit. An incomplete list includes Mississippi Kite and Black-billed
> Cuckoo in 1989, Sedge Wren in 1991, Streak-backed Oriole in 1996, plus a
> Tropical Parula in 2018, the latter being the first state record for
> California. Jim found all these birds in Huntington Beach by concentrating
> his efforts within a limited geographic area and exploring it in depth. In
> the 1990s and early 2000s Jim joined with a small contingent of California
> birders who were exploring the Baja California Peninsula. He and I traveled
> there together in October 1986 where we stumbled upon an Olive-backed Pipit
> - a First Record for Mexico - in Catavina, a small palm oasis and rancho
> in the mid-peninsula portion of Baja. We spotted it independently, but only
> Jim knew instantly what it was. In time, Jim’s skill in bird finding and
> identification were acknowledged statewide, leading to his election to
> multiple terms as a member of the California Bird Records Committee (CBRC).
>
>
>
> The late, great Loren Hays was instrumental in recognizing Jim’s skills
> and talent as a naturalist and encouraged Jim to turn his avocation into a
> career. Starting as a seasonal biologist, and later as an independent
> consultant, Jim worked for 36 seasons with various agencies including the
> Orange County Water District, studying the Prado Basin population of
> endangered Least Bell’s Vireos. While the number of vireos nesting there
> varied from year to year, their increase likely made the Prado population a
> major source of fledglings that colonized rehabilitated riparian habitat
> throughout Southern California in subsequent years. Jim’s success there,
> both in monitoring and implementing recovery strategies certainly stands
> as one of his most significant achievements.
>
>
>
> Jim’s work with the vireos was seasonal, and he and Kim took full
> advantage of the offseason. They traveled widely throughout the western
> states, often camping in offroad areas that gave them access to remote
> desert and mountain areas. At home Jim and Kim nurtured multiple
> “fur-children”, a dog and multiple indoor cats, as well as some feathered
> ones.
>
>
>
> As a friend and fellow birder, thank you, Jim Pike, for all you
> accomplished in conservation and for all you shared with the community
> birding. You are greatly missed.
>
>
>
> Tom Wurster
>
> Garden Grove
>
>
> --
> Ryan Winkleman
> Rancho Santa Margarita, (the crown jewel of) Orange County
>
>
>
