Salton Sea to Oxnard California

The Salton Sea was a great birding area and we were to return there but first it was back to the desert near Yuma to relax and return to Mexico for some affordable dental work. Then back to Slab City and a tour of the wetlands around the Salton Sea with a contract tour on the International Birding Festival. Saw some great birding areas. No life-birds but some great birding. Seeing thousands of Pintails at one time was interesting. The bird expert was a painful, egotistical, know-it-all, but except for some glaring mis-identifications, he really did have a good birding knowledge. From there we headed to desert Hot Springs Resort, a Western Horizon Resort. Not an organization that I would want to belong to. I was a bit amused with the inhospitality of nearly everyone – staff, members, sales staff, etc. Not that we did not meet some friendly folks but they were the exception and not the rule. Went from there to 29 Palms where we stayed at the Marine Corps Base. Just a few miles from the Joshua Tree National Park, we took the time to drive through the park, take a couple hikes through an oasis (saw my first California thrasher) and play a round of golf on the Marine base.
From there it was back to Algedones, Mexico for some dental follow-up. That completed we worked our way westward to Point Magu Navy Base near Ventura, California (Northwest of Los Angeles). We are nearly parked right on the beach. Shore birds and harbor seals are abundant. The weather forecast is scheduled to be varied from day-to –day for the next week so we need to plan our activities accordingly. The good weather of the first day made for a touring opportunity to see Hollywood. We took the drive down the Pacific Coast Highway and into Hollywood where we saw Grauman’s Chineese Theater, the Kodak Theater, the Hollywood Walk-of-Fame with all the stars as well as the footprints and hand prints of stars in front of the theater. We also went down to the La Brea Tar Pits to view the work being done there as well as to go through the museum and see the thousands of fossils they have so far discovered. The displays of Mammoths, saber-tooth cats, dire wolves, and more were a great sight to see. Watching the actual excavation-in-progress and the cleaning and cataloging work was most interesting.
The Oxnard area has been interesting. We visited the Harbor at Ventura, after getting some advice from the folks at the Oxnard Information Center. We attempted to find the roosting monarch butterflies at a local city park but few remained. Seems late February is just too late. We did fond a few mating pairs and others flying around as well as numerous hummingbirds. The only ones I could positively identify were Anna’s. The Costa hummingbird, supposedly common, simply eludes me. We sto[pped at a fruit stand and bough farm fresh celery, avacodos, and strawberries. Eating one of these berried is almost like eating an apple.

Oxnard is just a few miles from the Channel Islands so I had to take a trip out there. Added almost a dozen new birds to my life list including the endemic scrub jay of Santa Cruz Island. Saw several new cormorants, some auklets and common murrelets. No whales but hundreds, maybe thousands of common dolphins as well as a multitude of sea lions. A great trip on the Island Packer.