The end of a year - Part One

Well, 2009 is almost over so I thought I would recap the year through a month-by-month look at the things I've done, the birds I've seen, and the places I've been this last year. Time goes by so fast, it seems like this year just began!

In January, the year began with a birding trip with LAAS to the Salton Sea. This two-day trip turned up 18 new life birds for me. Geez... that's almost embarrassing. I should have birded this area myself before I went on this trip, and I had, actually, but I didn't know where to go and arrived too late in the day to make use of my time. The Salton Sea is four hours from Ventura County, and you really need to drive there the day before in order to begin birding at a reasonable time. The LAAS is offering this same trip again in 2010, and I may sign up to go again despite my dislike of being shown birds as though on a tour rather than a learning "field trip". We'll see. It seems like if I don't sign up for these kind of trips, I don't end up birding these places that are father away from home on my own. I guess there's a trade-off in there somewhere.

So, those 18 new birds... We started the day at the Wister Unit of the Imperial Wildlife Area where we pretty quickly picked up Verdin, Abert's Towhee, and Black-tailed Gnatcatcher in the brush. Also present were Gambel's Quail, a species I saw the first time I attempted to bird this same area. There may have been a Ladder-backed Woodpecker here; we saw one this same day, but I don't remember where.