08 June 2011

Salton Sea NWR



We visited the Salton Sea NWR way back in April.  Read out our trip, lost car topper and all, at Hubby's blog -- Life in Two Harbors.

I advise you to stop in at the Visitor's Center first.  The person there was very helpful and suggested a driving route that helped us to see a lot of birds -- including more than 20 burrowing owls and the barn owl hanging out in a palm tree at the Center itself.

I have been meaning to go to the Salton Sea ever since we first moved to California.  We had a great time and I hope to return in the winter...

Here is our species list, mainly for birds. Sorry that the species are not in taxonomic order.  Usually I try to transfer it using a species checklist like this one for the Salton Sea NWR, but this time it's straight out of my field notebook.  So things are in the order that I saw them or remembered that I saw them...

Salton Sea NWR
Blooming palo verde tree
25 April 2011

Common ground dove
Eurasian collared dove
Gambel’s quail
Great-tailed grackle
Warbling vireo
Great egret
White-crowned sparrow
House sparrow
Western kingbird
Black-headed grosbeak
Cattle egret
Caspian tern
Western gull
Black phoebe
Mallard
Barn swallow
Northern rough-winged swallow
Western tanager
Burrowing owl along Walker Road
Black-necked stilt
American golden plover
Ruddy duck
American avocet
White pelican
Eared grebe
Great blue heron
Scaup (lesser or greater?)
Surf scoter
Green heron
Pied-billed grebe
Turkey vulture
American kestrel
American coot
Semipalmated plover
Killdeer
Willet
View of the Salton Sea. Not so pretty.
Marbled godwit
Ring-billed gull
Gull-billed tern
Mourning dove
Burrowing owl
Barn owl
Western meadowlark
Red-winged blackbird
Verdin
Marsh wren
Black skimmer
Northern mockingbird
European starling
Wilson’s warbler
Northern raven
Spotted sandpiper
King rail (heard)
Greater roadrunner

Desert cottontails (Sylvilagus audubonii)
Round-tailed ground squirrels (Spermophilus tereticaudus)


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