AR04/01 Salton Sea 12JAN04

A small intimate party of twenty birders left The Beer Hunter at 7am, and after driving 203 miles around the Salton Sea and seeing 89 species, my own party reached Rancho Mirage at 4.55pm. Mrs M is totally vindicated and has my humble apology - though she will still eat her heart out when she reads the list!

Anna's Humming Bird Rock Pigeon Mourning Dove American Kestrel Northern Mockingbird
House Sparrow Starling Brewer's Blackbird Green Winged Teal Gadwall
Killdeer Mallard Snipe Snowy Egret Coot
Say's Phoebe Great Tailed Grackle Ring Billed Gull Yellow Rump Warbler Western Bluebird
Common Raven House Finch Peregrine Falcon Ruby Crowned Kinglet White Crown Sparrow
Belted Kingfisher Great Blue Heron Forrester's Tern Northern Shoveler Great Egret
White-faced Ibis American Pipit Red Breasted Merganser Black Crown Night Heron Verdin
Shrike Osprey Black Tailed Gnat catcher Pied Billed Grebe Black Necked Stilt
Avocet Pintail Double Crested Cormorant Least Sandpiper White Pelican
Eared Grebe Long billed Dowitcher Northern Harrier Red Tailed Hawk Phainopepla
Black Phoebe Common Ground Dove Orange Crowned Warbler Common Yellowthroat American Bittern
Cooper's Hawk Cinnamon Teal Ladderback Woodpecker American Redstart Abert's Towhee
Bewick's Wren Spotted Towhee Canada Goose N Rough-Winged Swallow Snow Goose
Ross Goose Turkey Vulture Barn Swallow Violet-Green Swallow Kite
Bank Swallow Western Sandpiper Sharp Shinned Hawk Marbled Godwit Cattle Egret
Mountain Plover Burrowing Owl Western Meadowlark Greater Roadrunner Red Wing Blackbird
Willett Spotted Sandpiper Black-bellied Plover Semi-palmated Plover Herring Gull
Greater Yellow Legs Long Billed Curlew Savannah Sparrow Gambel's Quail.........and a coyote

We had a wonderful and most exhausting day and think of what we missed - no Jays, no Brown Pelican,no Costa's. Lucky we did not try to boost the list!

Many thanks to all for turning up and particular thanks to Mike for steering us around the Salton Sea and to the Tortoise Lady for her immaculate species list.

If you have any ideas for more outings, please e-mail or call me at 760 328 6750. Our next booking is for the San Bernardino Museum on Monday 23rd February and I will give you more details later..........Good Birding.............bb



Barry Parkes
bbparkes@ix.netcom.com
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