(no subject)
Weeeel.
Been a bit busy these last few weeks. Mostly been birding and traveling around Southern California, TRYING to make onward travel directions. Unfortunately many of the plans for Hawaii have fallen through so we may end up heading for South America first. Way it goes I guess.
Anyway, we've had a couple of good birding days - won't bore you with the details too much but we hit the Tijuana River Estuary in Chula Vista, went out to Salton Sea (which was entirely more pleasant than I'd been led to expect) and took a boat out to Santa Cruz island in the Channel Islands!
Many pictures behind the cut!
Yesterday we took a boat out from Ventura harbour to the largest of the Channel Islands - Santa Cruz, with the goal of locating the Island Scrub Jay which lives only there. (Oh look, there's no photo on the wikipedia page for this bird, suppose I should contribute...) There was also the hope of seeing the Island Fox - a species that only lives on the Channel Islands, but I didn't think we had much of a chance for that.
All in all, it was a TOUGH hike, but we got to see a lot of great things: Island Fox, Island Scrub Jay, Common Dolphins, Bottle Nosed Dolphins, Gray Whales, Murres, Rhinoceros Auklets and mroe!
The marshlands in Chula Vista were quite nice though it was rather overcast during the day. Glor got a few new birds there.
The Salton Sea is an inland salt lake that was most recently formed when the entire Colorado River changed its course in 1905 and began to fill up an empty valley.
Been a bit busy these last few weeks. Mostly been birding and traveling around Southern California, TRYING to make onward travel directions. Unfortunately many of the plans for Hawaii have fallen through so we may end up heading for South America first. Way it goes I guess.
Anyway, we've had a couple of good birding days - won't bore you with the details too much but we hit the Tijuana River Estuary in Chula Vista, went out to Salton Sea (which was entirely more pleasant than I'd been led to expect) and took a boat out to Santa Cruz island in the Channel Islands!
Many pictures behind the cut!
Yesterday we took a boat out from Ventura harbour to the largest of the Channel Islands - Santa Cruz, with the goal of locating the Island Scrub Jay which lives only there. (Oh look, there's no photo on the wikipedia page for this bird, suppose I should contribute...) There was also the hope of seeing the Island Fox - a species that only lives on the Channel Islands, but I didn't think we had much of a chance for that.
All in all, it was a TOUGH hike, but we got to see a lot of great things: Island Fox, Island Scrub Jay, Common Dolphins, Bottle Nosed Dolphins, Gray Whales, Murres, Rhinoceros Auklets and mroe!
The marshlands in Chula Vista were quite nice though it was rather overcast during the day. Glor got a few new birds there.
The Salton Sea is an inland salt lake that was most recently formed when the entire Colorado River changed its course in 1905 and began to fill up an empty valley.
