It's time for a belated Monday Birding post.

This last Saturday Libby and I made the grand old trek to the Salton Sea NWR, Imperial County California. It was a long trip, but we found it well worth it! It was a ton of fun, with interesting scenery, geological bizarrities, and lots and lots of birds.

Our day started unpleasantly at 4:45. As the alarm shook us awake, we groaned and I have to admit that I wondered it if it was worth it. Thankfully, we thought ahead enough to get everything ready the morning before. In less than half an hour, we were out of the door into the dark, and primed for travel. Here's the route we took from Google Maps.

I guess our first bird of the day was seen in North Palm Springs, where we got gas: a bunch of House Sparrows lived there.

The first birding stop was along the North-Eastern half of the Salton Sea. In the Salton Sea Recreation Area, there are several beaches that you can stop at, most of which are just barren campgrounds. The one we stopped at was just a strip of desert sand, rocks, and then the water next to the freeway. But we saw several neat birds! One was a pair of Horned Larks, which we saw from a distince on Catalina but really close up here. We also decided to practice identifying gulls (you may have noticed that all gulls look the same: that does not mean they are the same species!). We got our first successful identification of a Herring Gull, there were some Ring-Billed Gulls (very common at the Salton Sea), and as we approached the car to get in I noticed on gull was smaller with a black ear-spot. It was a Bonaparte Gull! This was our second lifer of the day! It took off as we neared the car, and we got to see its distinctive wing pattern: grey, white and then just a black fringe along the edge of the primaries and secondary wing feathers. I think that's when we realized this could be a very cool day. In breeding plumage, the Bonaparte's gull has a black head, which would be neat to see.

Our next stop was the Wister Unit of the Imperial Wildlife Area. It was hunting season, and this was not a refuge. In the parking lot, we saw our first Eurasian Collared Doves, and our first Abert's Towhees. I got my first Orange-Crowned Warbler (Libby's seen one before). This being our first time here, we didn't really know where to go, and let ourselves be directed by a mysterious sign that promised mud pots.

As I researched our trip, I'd learned that around the Southern part of the Salton Sea, there are vents in the ground that let up carbon dioxide. These vents are filled with viscous mud, that bubbles. Mud pots are where the sand has dropped away around the vents, and you can hear the mud bubbling way down deep inside of them. You can't really go near them, because the ground's falling away, and so we didn't get the best look. They also smell sort of sulfurish. That's strange because they're not volcanic. The mud is, in fact, only a little warmer than the surrounding air.

Anyway, we found the mud pots of the Wister Unit, and picked up a Verdin (a beautiful little bird with a bright yellow head)and some Peregrine Falcons. We also heard what were probably Least Bitterns making all kinds of bizarre noises from within the rushes. There were White-Faced Ibises, a bird we haven't seen since the summer at Crowley Lake, which was fun. It was hard to see many ducks, though, because the hunters made them very, very skittish. This was a bizarre place, lots of ponds and reeds made movement and visibility limited. Added to the difficult passage, we were surrounded by the constant sound of gunfire. This is a little unnerving, to say the least, and I hoped that the hunters had good aim.

Oh yeah, we found a Marsh Wren there (a lifer for me) and we spooked a Peregrine Falcon that was only a couple of feet in front of us on a thickly vegetated trail. It burst out and was gone in a second, but we saw clearly the slate gray back. The falcon was a lifer, also. This is the great thing about beginning birding, there are a lot of lifers that are totally new to you that are fairly common birds.

We then split from the Wister Unit to go to our original destination, the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Preserve. This is where we had a great chance of seeing the birds I was most excited about: the Snow and Ross's Geese.

Every winter, thousands upon thousands of these geese migrate from the tundra of the far north to the warmer lands of the south. And the Salton Sea is one of their main destinations. We saw a few of them at Wister, far away in the sky, wheeling this way or that with a lot of clatter, but the problem was to identify them. The Ross's goose is white, with black on the wing. So is the Snow Goose. But the Snow Goose is larger, and its bill is distinctive. It has a grey prominent grin patch, and the feathers make a curved line at the base of the bill. The Ross's goose is smaller, its bill is shorter and less curved at the top (the culmen) and the feathers form a straight line. So if you see a big flock of white and black geese whirling around in the sky, it's impressive and beautiful, but you can't identify anything.

The Wildlife Refuge (and Wister, but not accessibly) provide fields for the geese to forage on, to spare the crops of the surrounding farms. That was our best bet. Unfortunately, we got a bit lost on the way to the refuge, and we had a hard time finding it. But, on the way, we got to see some Cattle Egrets (lifer!), a Prairie Falcon (sandy bird, a bit smaller than the Peregrine, with more mechanical wing-beats: a lifer!), a wire covered in Barn Swallows, and some Wood Ducks in an agricultural pond. We found our way to the right track, and also found the mud volcanoes. When I get a chance, I'll post some pictures of those. They're really cool! Here, the CO2 is pushing the mud up into 7 foot high piles of dirt, with real mud lava flows and everything. These were definitely a highlight of the trip.

Soon we made our way to the Wildlife Refuge, and at the feeders were were happy to see Gambel's Quail. The California Quail is very similar (there are some morphological differences but not pronounced), but their ranges don't really overlap. That was an easy lifer to find! Here we ate lunch, which consisted of the marvelous smoked salmon our Uncle Jim (Rowley) sent us for Christmas. Yum!

Then we set off on a walk around the short trail they had there. We were treated to a bunch more Verdin, a Belted Kingfisher, Black and Say's Pheobes, Yellow Rumped Warblers, Red-Winged Blackbirds, Long-Billed Dowitchers, a Long-Billed Curlew, a bunch o' Willets, and at the end of the trail there was a pond filled with far more waterfowl than we had ever before seen in our life. The water was black with them, like brine flies on the banks of Mono Lake. As we were watching these ducks (a few Ruddy Ducks, the rest being Northern Pintail, American Wigeons and Northern Shovelers), the air filled with a honking white mass. Something had disturbed the feeding geese in the fields. It was an incredible sight. We probably saw more birds, numerically on Saturday than we ever have before. All those geese in the air reminded me of what they say the Passenger Pigeons used to be like. I've read they used to make the day into night when they flew over. These geese couldn't do that, but there were enough of them to hint at the possiiblity. Probably the biggest flocks I've seen before this are of California Gulls at Mono Lake, but that is nothing compared to these flocks of geese. We found, on our way back to our car, that they had moved to a field near the trail, and we found in the flock easily identifiable Snow and Ross's Geese. We also found a pair of Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers (lifer!).

Next we decided to go to Salt Creek Beach, which was on the way home, to see some rare birds somebody had spotted there: a Barrow's Goldeneye, White-Winged Scoter, and a Tri-Colored Heron. Shoot, Libby and I had never seen a Common Goldeneye, and we were excited at the opportunity.

On the way back, we drove right by the Wister Unit, again, and there was a group of birders we had seen earlier in the day (like 4 hours earlier) standing around there. We had talked to them earlier, and found they were looking for a Rufous-Backed Robin. That would be a cool bird to see, but we knew that if you're waiting around for a rare bird, that's going to take some time, and we had a lot of other things to see. As we pulled up alongside them on the way home, I rolled down the window, and was instantly assured that they hadn't been waiting there that whole time. Ironically, someone burst from the bushes at that moment, and declared that they had seen it. So I pulled over the car, Libby and I grabbed our binoculars and ran over to get a look.

Unfortunately, the bird was not to be found. As we got into the bushes on a small trail, we saw it flit through the underbrush, but not identifiably. We waited for a little while to see if it would come out again, but nothing was much doing. A lot of other birds were in those bushes though, and one moved in my peripheral vision. I glanced over my shoulder to be staring directly at an American Redstart. This was a lifer for Libby and I, and I just sort of incredulously asked, "Hey, isn't that a Redstart?" The other birders looked up and shrugged, "Yep." This is a rare bird, though not nearly so rare as the Robin was, and I guess they had all seen it before. It's really a pretty bird, with bright red spots on its shoulders and tail. This was a male, so we got to see it in its full brilliance.

After that we left, and went straight to Salt Creek. Some of the birders who had been watching for the Robin were there, and helped us find the Barrow's Goldeneye (a female: only distinguished from the Common Goldeneye by its completely yellow bill), and the White-Winged Scoter (Brown with white patches near the tail, as well as a funky shaped Bill). We were excited to see several Common Goldeneye with the Barrow's. The Tri-Colored Heron was nowhere to be found, but we took a nice little walk along the beach anyway, before heading home.

As we walked along the beach, the cold breeze blew over the water, creating small breakers that rolled gently to the shore in series. On the other side of the Sea, storm clouds billowed over the mountains, and the sun was setting into them. It turned the furthest clouds a furious orangey-pink, and it looked like the gods were stoking their hearth-fires. The wild plants, tall reeds and short grasses, turned grayer as the light dimmed, and they rustled calmly. I was very happy at that moment: my wife and I surrounded by a very wild, beautiful place.

It was a good trip, and we had a whole lot of fun. Now Libby's sick, though, and I'm back at work. Such is life! This is an incredibly long post. If you read it all, good for you. I'll probably edit it down and add pictures tomorrow.