A couple California notables:

• Checked out Lafayette Reservoir. Didn't feel the desire to bird too intensely with all the foot traffic. Got asked "Did you see the eagles?" like three times by passersby which must rank as the premier question to ask someone with a telephoto lens. I did see the eagle.
   
   
  Spotted Towhee
  
  
  
• Outside of a bar in North Beach we met a man who's wife's cousin is the mayor of Mindo, Ecuador. He made several gracious offers to set me up with some birding hospitality should I ever make it out there.
  
• Chatted for far too long with an Australian dude (he looked very Italian-American to me...) who was trapped in an insane series of thought loops about Boolean algebra, the infinitesimal chance that we should be meeting at that moment, and his perception of me and my friends as "weird, smart motherfuckers" (disquieting). Overall a nice lad.
• Fantastic weather, hiking, and food at Joshua Tree with my buds. Many new desert wrens and sparrows. Heard a Gambel's Quail. Just chuffed that our plan worked out. Got sick on the second day but who cares anymore.
  
  Phainopepla
  
  
  
  
  Loggerhead Shrike
  Back on the road solo again for a week. Staying in San Diego at a newly reopened regional park right on the border with Mexico. One of the rangers gave me a laundry list of birding spots and also delivered another "Right on, you're at the age to do this." I'm pretty certain they think I'm fresh out of high school or something.
  

  Black-throated Sparrow I love you I want to take care of you

   

  LIFE LIST: im at 250
  

  
   

Yesterday I drove south to check out the Hayward Regional Shoreline on account of its gargantuan 110 species logged this month. Just upon entering the refuge area, I saw two White-tailed Kites possibly sharing a meal in the canopy.

Adding the pack of peeps I saw on the first mudflat, I knew it would be a fruitful morning. Innumerable Western and Least sandpipers plucked away furiously in the appetizing muck. Don't ask me to tell you the difference between them!

Golden-crowned Sparrow

 

With the sun beating down I made my way toward the tidal marsh, which greeted me with countless new shorebirds including North America's largest and one I've really been anticipating, the Long-billed Curlew.

 Marbled Godwit

Barn Swallows appeared to be preparing for their first brood of the season, taking up residence under wooden bridges that spanned across the brackish water.

Today I went to the Elsie Roemer Bird Sanctuary in Alameda for more shorebirding. I also wanted to practice some basic gull ID which I've been neglecting for too long. This place was heaven-sent. Super close-up views of everything and according to some locals, exceptionally low tide.

 

Northern pintail

I spent a while with a local birder Paul photographing our mutual favorite Black Skimmer. They were raising hell amongst a massive mixed flock of Dunlin, Willet, American Avocet, Snowy Egrets, Black-necked Stilts, sandpipers, and a variety of gulls. We were thrilled watching their bizarre acrobatics and delicate waddling on the sand. I'm proud of this one:

 

 

Paul confessed that he was more of a photographer than a birder, so we had a good time reasoning through Larus identification together. But that was driven aside when droves of Elegant Terns swooped in with their own stunts.

 

 

Continuing to a deck down the beach, we bumped into one of Paul's friends who had a Snowy Plover in her scope! She also helped me confirm my gull suspicions, my larophile future begins now. The three of us surveyed the many species that were nesting on the beach until they peeled off back to the skimmers.

 

 

Short-billed gull

TO/YESTERDAY: 58

 

LIFE LIST: 217 -> 235

 

 

~3600 miles and 30 new species later, I am elated to be in Oakland at Noah's lovely home. The biting cold was wearing on me a bit, but oddly seeing the wind farms around Mojave was the first visual that really improved morale. It also reminded me of the bankrupted startup I interned at which was headquartered there.

We are preparing a vat of vegetable stew and I'm recounting to him what's led up to this point. The saga of the Oklahoma dust storm somehow feels like ages ago. 

This marks roughly a quarter of the trip complete and it's time the birding ramps up. In the morning I went to a cemetery up the block which was teeming with Bay Area year-round species. Its topography was not dissimilar to Green-Wood Cemetery, and it was charming to see some West Coast relatives behaving in similar ways, like this Black Phoebe which seem to love perching on tombstones. 

 

A very exciting bird to see out here, the idiosyncratic Acorn Woodpecker. 

 

My fourth chickadee so far, Chestnut-Backed!

 

One of three Violet-green Swallows orbiting a Palm tree:

 

 

I saw and heard several other lifers as well. It was beatific.

 

TODAY: 29

 

LIFE LIST: 207 -> 217

 

 

 

Been at a state park in the Zion/Bryce Canyon area for a couple of days. I hiked the latter this morning. Only came across two people for a 6 mile stretch and was stuck in a great reverie for the uphill stretch of the return leg. I had many entertaining, useless thoughts about how I could conduct my life. 

No service around my campsite, so I'm posting from here:

Here's a quick result from my "wildness study":

Golden pricklypear

Narrowleaf Yucca

Blue Grama Grass

Badlands Mule-ears

Sand ricegrass

Bushtits, white-tailed jackrabbit eluded my camera just trust me. Neat sand duney spot.

CURRENT MINOR BUGBEARS:

Mattress pad has sprung a miniscule leak, cmon.

Not enough birding time.

I'm dirty, most parks have the showers shut off for winter.

Driving generally towards Oakland tomorrow! 

Just got Pinyon Jay on top of a Ponderosa <3 

LIFE LIST: 204 -> 207

I cannot answer as to why I haven't spent two nights in the same location until now. I felt refreshed this morning not scrambling to get on the road and instead sleeping until after sunrise and taking it slow. Light birding around my campsite in the AM yielded some dapper sparrow shots amongst the Russian thistle.

Dark-eyed junco (Oregon form)

 

 

White-crowned Sparrow  

I did the Arches ordeal. No news to report on that really. So I'll just give you my top three rock formations

 

1. Three Gossips
2. The Phallus 
3. Tower Arch

Birded in some mostly-closed wetlands afterwards. It was mid-afternoon so the activity was in a lull. But I got my third bluebird species! This one of the Western variety. 

Western Bluebird

 

I think I'm about ready to see a familiar human face.

 

TODAY: uhhh 15 maybe

LIFE LIST: 202 -> 204

 

 

 

 

 

 

What, where?

The car overnighter was just OK. Tossing and turning but plenty warm. After waking and still blurry-eyed, a disheveled man called to me from about 5 feet away in this otherwise deserted campground asking if I'd seen his escaped dog, and that his tent was attacked last night by some animal. I thought he would axe-murder me. 

The slapdash car sleeping cavern

I was pretty sleep deprived but thankfully the drive to the sand dunes was only a couple of hours away. I stopped in a few mountain towns to kill some time before checking in. 

Arriving there I walked some of the non-dune trails off in the mountains. 

The dunes are really something else. I started my hike right at sunrise and set off aimlessly toward the tallest dune as there are no defined trails. Another damn day with high wind warnings, but I pushed for as long as I could.

Heading to Durango via I-160, I got caught in a snowstorm on Wolf Creek Pass and nearly stalled out in a bluff. My 2WD was no match. what the hell man. I'm sure people saw my Georgia plates and smirked.

So now I'm in Moab, wind continues to assail me but it's divine. 

New Birds?

Yea a few! Mountain Bluebird and Townsend's Solitaire at the dunes visitor center. Admittedly I've not been birding quite as heavily for the last few days.

Dinner tonight?

You're looking at it bud. There's still red flag warnings everywhere so no fires.

Anything else?

I adore setting up my tent now. I'm staking at a blistering pace. Nothing better than a simple, repeatable action to ground you.

I picked up a new mallet from 2 Mormon teens in town.

I felt grateful when after my last bout of sleep I finally saw the sun beginning to rise. To nix my freezing doldrums and allow my tent to dry out, I headed on a quick walk, getting a nice view of a Say's Phoebe perched on a cane cholla. 

Simply overjoyed to be sitting in upholstery, I didn't exactly have a target for the next stop so I just quickly looked for any refuges nearby, settling on Maxwell NWR 45 minutes west in New Mexico. What a chance find it was. "Lake Thirteen" held Common Goldeneye, Northern Pintail, Sandhill Cranes, and hundreds upon hundreds of other waterfowl. 

 

Goldeneye

That took me to mid-afternoon, where a couple of inexplicable decisions has put me in Cimarron Canyon State Park. 100% the most isolated campground of the trip so far, no other tenants in the 60-site lot. Beautiful scenery though I'll concede. It turns out no one camps in March out here, except for the Cinnamon Teal that's been chilling in the pond right behind my car (and Mountain Chickadee and Stellar's Jay). 

 

Seeing that it is freezing again tonight I'll live out what most people thought I meant by "car camping". It already feels much better than the tent. The plan is to drift off to the 1931 best picture winner Cimarron.

TODAY: 29

LIFE LIST: 194 -> 200