California 17 September - 3 October 1998

We planned this trip ourselves, prebooking a hire car, and motels in San Francisco, Yosemite and Santa Barbara only. All other accommodation and the detailed itinerary were left flexible.

Before departure, we had studied the guide books (bird and travel) and scoured the internet, so we had a pretty good idea of what to expect.

California still far exceeded our expectations in almost all respects and provided a great holiday.




We flew from London to San Francisco arriving early afternoon and immediately set out to explore the city. We are not usually great fans of cities, especially American "downtowns", but found much of San Francisco to have a pleasant character and atmosphere.

We quickly toured the area around Fisherman's Wharf where the number of sea lions at Pier 39 was a surprise. The Alcatraz trips were all fully booked, so we abandoned that and continued to explore on foot putting aside any thoughts of bird watching for what remained of the day.

The next morning, we headed for the Presidio in search of birdlife and to admire the views. We immediately came across surf scoters, red-throated diver (red-throated loon) and great northern diver (common loon), brown pelican, royal tern, heerman's and herring gull in the Bay.

We worked our way around the Presidio and then back through Golden Gate Park finding hairy woodpecker, pygmy nuthatch, chestnut backed chickadee, dark eyed junco, townsend's warbler, great egret and many others on the way.










The next day, we crossed over to Marin County stopping briefly at Sausalito before continuing north to Bolinas Lagoon and the Point Reyes Bird Observatory. The varied habitats produced a good mix of birds, especially wetland species.







On day 4, we headed south along the coast as far as Half Moon Bay with stops at the Sutro Baths and Princeton beach before turning inland across the San Mateo Bridge towards our destination of Mariposa.

On the way, we had a detour up the Del Puerto Canyon Road where we saw a prarie falcon and our only flock of yellow-billed magpie on the entire trip.

We also made a fleeting visit to the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge. We were too early in the year for large numbers of wildfowl but Mosquitos were very plentiful. We did have good views of swainson's hawk and northern harrier, and this northern mockingbird posed nicely. Finally, at Mariposa, we had close views of lesser goldfinch, white-breasted nuthatch and ladder-backed woodpecker.



Although quite a long drive from the entrance, Mariposa proved to be a good base from which to explore the wonders of Yosemite National Park. Several days are needed to do it anything like justice, but in our 2 days we managed to explore much of Yosemite Valley and we also made it up to Glacier Point where the views are amazing.

We saw common merganser on the way to the park, and once there typical woodland birds seen were brown creeper, white-headed and hairy woodpeckers, red-breasted sapsucker whilst Steller's Jays were present in abundance everywhere.






























On the second day, we drove right through the park from west to east, stopping at many of the lakes and sighting a black bear as it crossed the road ahead. Eventually we arrived at Lee Vining next to Mono Lake, our base for 2 nights and then continued on to the preserved ghost town at Bodie.




Right in the centre of Bodie, a flock of sage grouse were happily grazing although their camouflage was so good that it would have been easy to miss them. They must have been used to people as they allowed me to get quite close to take a photograph. Other birds present here were brewer's blackbird, sage thrasher, mountain bluebird and red-tailed hawk.




The following day, we explored the area around Mono Lake. This is at first a bit daunting as the entire edge of the alkaline lake is covered in brine flies, but thankfully they are not the least bit interested in people. When we visited, the lake was home to thousands of eared grebes as well as wilson's and red-necked phalarope. Other birds seen nearby included virginia rail, sora, lewis's and hairy woodpeckers, green tailed towhee, marsh wren and red-winged blackbird. At nearby Jeffrey Pines, we found clark's nutcracker, loggerhead shrike, pinyon jay, mountain chickadee and white-breasted nuthatch.

Mono Lake is also famous for its tufa towers formed by calcium bearing freshwater springs bubbling up through the alkaline lake water.










On day 8, we headed south from Lee Vining along the Sierra Nevada towards Lone Pine taking many detours on the way to lakes and walking up valleys where we were caught in the odd snow flurry.

Birds seen included yellow and yellow-rumped warblers, northern flicker, western wood-pewee, clark's nutcracker, red-breasted and white-breasted nuthatches, and after arrival at Lone Pine, a fleeting glimpse of gambel's quail.


Early the next morning, we set off for Death Valley on a totally deserted road not really knowing what to expect. The stunning scenery came as a pleasant surprise as did the presence of birds which were numerous around the visitor centre and 18 hole golf course (another surprise).





















The temperature was in the mid-90's by late morning when we came across a road runner at the entrance to the visitor centre. This was followed by a flock of yellow-headed blackbirds on the golf course. We had searched for these at Mono Lake but they had already commenced their southward migration. Other birds seen included white-crowned, lark and lincoln's sparrows, grackles, starlings, etc.

We continued our journey southwest, staying overnight at Ridgecrest. On day 10, we drove to South Kern County Preserve at Weldon where a special event was being held to celebrate the turkey vulture migration, and we then headed for California City. New birds seen during the day included cactus wren, red shouldered and ferruginous hawks, vermillion flycatcher, anna's hummingbird and cedar waxwing. Without a firm plan for where to spend the night, we ended up in San Bernardino.

We made a dawn visit to the Robidoux Nature Center where we found california thrasher, california towhee and great blue heron.

We then drove to the San Jacinto Wildlife Area where access was unfortunately restricted due to high water levels but there was still a good selection of birds.

In the afternoon, we toured the Joshua Tree National Monument where birds were not easy to find although we did see roadrunner, cactus wren and black-throated sparrow.

We then continued to Indio where we would stay for 2 nights as our base for exploring the Salton Sea. The Sea was only formed in 1905 and is quite smelly but attracts large numbers of birds. The stars for us were the burrowing owls which were very common at the southern end of the sea and seemed happy to pose for the camera. A large variety of other birds were seen producing easily the largest day list of the holiday including osprey (see trip statistics).

The following day, we headed west to the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park where brewer's, black-throated and white-crowned sparrows, verdin and anna's hummingbird were present.


Further west, we came across wrentit, bushtit, black-tailed gnatcatcher, rock wren and lark sparrow before moving on to Escondido where we saw clark's grebe, blue-grey gnatcatcher, black-shouldered kite and many more at Hodges Lake.

We then headed north to visit the Tucker Wildlife Sanctuary where acorn and nuttall's woodpeckers, rufous-sided towhee, and confiding scrub jays were present, and then continued along the coast to Santa Barbara where we spent the remaining 3 nights.





















The following day, we took a boat trip from Ventura to East Anacapa Island. Apart from a number of shearwaters skimming the waves, we saw a peregrine falcon and an orange-crowned warbler on the island plus lots of sea lions and dolphins from the boat.






On the last full day of our holiday, we did a circuit from Santa Barbara past Lake Cachuma visiting Nojoqui Falls before returning via Goleta. We were pleased to see california quail at the roadside as this had eluded us until then.


That evening, after watching the sunset we had a nice dinner with friends, and the following morning drove to Los Angeles for our return flight.
















We had seen a total of 181 species during the holiday including 69 lifers. The hugely impressive and varied scenery never ceased to surprise us, and the laid back atmosphere and superb weather all helped to make this a truly memorable holiday.

The guides we used were "A Birder's Guide to Southern California" by Harold Holt, and "Birder's Guide to Northern California" by Lolo and Jim Westrich.

Itinerary

17 Sep	San Francisco
18 Sep	San Francisco Presidio & Golden Gate Park
19 Sep	Marin County
20 Sep	San Francisco - Mariposa
21 Sep	Yosemite National Park
22 Sep	Mariposa - Yosemite - Bodie - Lee Vining
23 Sep	Mono Lake
24 Sep	Lee Vining - Sierra Nevada - Lone Pine
25 Sep	Lone Pine - Death Valley National Park - Ridgecrest
26 Sep	Ridgecrest - San Bernardino
27 Sep	San Bernardino - Joshua Tree National Park - Indio
28 Sep	Salton Sea
29 Sep	Indio - Anza-Borrego - Escondido
30 Sep	Escondido - Santa Barbara
1 Oct	East Anacapa Island
2 Oct	Santa Barbara County
3 Oct	Santa Barbara - Los Angeles

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