San
Diego Bird Festival
Feb
09-14, 2005
Guide- Bob
Miller
I had the honor and great pleasure of leading several trips and
participating in others with the San Diego Bird Festival this year!
Here are two pages with a small handful of the hundreds of pics taken
that week.
Click on
thumbnail pictures for full-sized shots.
Day 1 - Wednesday: Anza Borrego
Desert State Park Tour
|
Desert explorers!
A few of the early blooming cactus like this Hedgehog were really
showy! |
The weather was fantastic in the desert and the enormous amounts of
rainfall had new vegetation coming up everywhere.
Hedgehog Cactus
|
|
Le Conte's Thrasher
search
|
Our walk through the desert at Old Springs got us
a look at several distant LeConte's Thrashers. Some of the
low areas that had been flooded were just now drying out leaving symmetrical
art work behind. A visit by Ranger Bob gave us all a good
laugh as I started to bust out running while yelling
"Everybody run! It's the park ranger!" My
bad.
|
| One of our stops was at Tamarisk Grove campground
where we added a few more nice birds and colorful flowers to our
list. |
Bladderpod
|
|
Day 2 -
Thursday: Cuyamaca State Park & Laguna Mountains Tour
|
Rain threatened but never really happened as it turned out to be a
fun day in the mountains. We had a light rain for a bit and
at one point even had a few snow flakes which thrilled an old
desert rat like me. A major portion of Cuyamaca SP was burned off
last year and my favorite spot for White-headed Woodpecker was no
longer.
|
Paso Picacho
|
|
Canada Goose
Brewer's Blackbird
|
We had some good birds at Cuyamaca Lake as well and one of the
best birds of the day was an adult Bald Eagle in the meadow. The
water is so high in the lake that it has actually gone over the
dike at the east end and I think that is the first time it has
ever done that. This original old jail sits just up the hill
from The Birdwatcher store in Julian. On our way back to San Diego
a few of us got to see a Bobcat in a meadow beside the road!
Julian Jail
|
Day 3 -
Friday: First Pelagic Trip was cancelled by rain and heavy seas
|
The pelagic trip had been cancelled so Stan, Matt, Lea and I
went to La Jolla to sit in the rain and watch for sea birds from
the bench in front of the La Jolla Bridge Club. Not many sea
birds and we did get wet but we had fun and had the place to
ourselves!!
|
Heermann's Gull
|
|
