Increase in Jets?

I think you answered your own question:

“I’ve had more time to devote to birdwatching of late & due to that have become more aware of airplane flight patterns.”

You’ve been looking skyward more often, and thus have seen more airplanes. No mystery to me!!

I particularly hate the flight that crosses S.B. at about 12:30 am almost every night!

Southwest wants to be friends

I haven't noticed any increase lately. I live right under the landing and take off pattern. In fact the eves on my condo are a slight shade darker than the neighboring condos, I suspect from the jet fuel.

LA go home

My coworkers family few into SBA to avoid the Covid protocol for LA County. But I don’t think they were flying private.

I too have noticed the change. It appears to be driven primarily by privately operated aircraft. The airport has established a web site to allow for specific times of complaints, which are logged and you may later see the final resolution (if any). Try the site below.
https://secure.symphonycdm.com/publicvue/Frames.asp?sys=SBA&HeaderFrame=HeaderPage.asp&MenuFrame=leftMenu.asp?Context=Complaint&ContentFrame=TitlePage_Complaints.asp

Ohhhhhhk airport whiners....again.
Traffic at SBA has been reduced probably by more than half from this time last year. So I can’t understand why everyone complains. Again! United has a total of only 4 flights a day. American has a total of 5. Three to Phoenix and 2 to Dallas. And Alaska has three flights. THATS IT! All of these flights are on either CRJ or ERJ175 aircraft, NON OF WHICH ARE LARGE as described in other comments. So let’s just say average is 4 trips, morning afternoon and evening for a total of only 12 flights. Maybe what you hear are all those private jets which the Santa Barbara elite fly on into or out of the area. I think our community should be very happy we have the service we do, which has been greatly reduced since the pandemic and the reduction of travel around the world. If these flights would be reduced further, I feel we’d still have the whiners even if we had ONE flight. I live less than a mile from the airport by the way, and in 40 years I haven’t complained by noise or frequency, I’m glad we have the service we do.

Agree! Have been on the upper Mesa for 30 years and the increase in air traffic has become much more noticeable. At times the low flying commercial flights seem constant. The reprieve from the pandemic was kinda nice for awhile.

Yes- I've wondered if I was losing my mind, so good to have some validation---- the number of low-flying planes over residential areas normally outside of the usual flight path, from Goleta to Santa Barbara and in between- is concerning; I am not talking about military, medical, or law enforcement flights- ...... One day last week I was outside for an hour, and saw a low flying plane overhead about every 8-10 minutes......

There seems to be more air traffic, especially midday. A lot of noisy flights yesterday at dusks coming into (or out of ?) the airport.

LAX flight to Hawaii fly just south of Santa Barbara -- you can see the contrails heading due west following our coastline out over the channel islands. I see a few most days.
https://www.flightstats.com/v2/flight-tracker/DL/443?year=2021&month=1&date=17&flightId=1052584737&utm_source=e545d11fe2ed0d2a:-65aae60a:14af99637e9:4160&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=weblet

The military has conducted test flights/training about 50 miles off the coast in the past. One military incident (confirmed) that I and my coworkers were aware of about 10 years ago made loud booming noises. Possibly commercial jets would be required to avoid the area west of us because of something like that.

Look at Flightradar, I see about 20 heading for Hawaii but don't think you'ld see them here.