Imperial
Valley with Palomar Audubon!
Jan 04,
2004
Guide - Bob Miller
An evening of fine
food, a great day of birding and a caravanning success with a fantastic
group of birders!
93 species (list follows at end
of page)
Click on
thumbnail pictures for full-sized shots.
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Canada Geese
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Dinner at the Steak House at Calipatria Inn was superb and the
company was great. First light of morning found us headed
for the Algae Farm. These Canada Geese were a nice sight as
we searched to rocky edges.
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| The Wandering Tattler made a showing and we had just
gotten the Ruff in all of the scopes when it jumped up and never
slowed down as it went into the sunrise. The temperature
seemed to take a dive as we were watching for Longspur's and there
was little happening as we shivered there. We picked up several
good doves as we swung back through Calipatria and after a little
patience the Ruddy Ground-Doves made an appearance to round out
the list. |
The Ruff goes away
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The Ground-Dove search
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Same search!
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Carnivorous Bermuda
Grass
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A Shot-eared Owl jumped up from the grass field as we walked
for pipits. We soon had a possible and everyone had marked
the spot. We all converged and found nothing! We had
another possible and immediately converged on it.
Nothing!?
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| Tricky birds in three inch dry grass for sure.
We finally got on this second one though and it was a beautifully
plain Sprague's Pipit. Even at 20 to 40 feet it was still hard to
follow it. |
Scope sculpture
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The long walk
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We ended up with scopes littered across the field as this bird
moused it way through the grass. Lunch was at the Sonny Bono
Salton Sea NWR where we had fun sorting out white geese in
flight. Time was going fast so headed for Obsidian Butte.
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| Just as we were getting ready to leave the butte we
caught sight of a large immature looking bird in flight that
promptly disappeared so we backtracked. I caught sight of the head
of the imm Yellow-footed Gull at the same time it saw me so we all
ran up the slope to see it going away. As we did an adult flew out
and perched! |
Yellow-footed Gull
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Reddish Egret
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As we were watching it a second adult Yellow-footed
Gull flew right by which was really exciting. Moving on we
had the Reddish Egret near the end of Lack Road and about 20 Sandhill
Cranes at Unit One. A coyote went by as we watched Burrowing
Owls. It was then time to part company. Andy, Warren
and I continued for another quarter mile and had an American
Bittern jump up! Thanks for a great day all. |
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