Several Yellow-billed Magpies were close-by on a local neighborhood road, and easy to approach. Location was just east of Los Olivos, California, which is located in the Santa Ynez Valley. This valley is separated from the coast by the east-west Santa Ynez Mountains, that reach 4,000' in elevation in some places, making this a hotter/colder and drier environment than the coast only twenty miles away (as the Magpie flies).