16 July 2010
Other web sources about hiking Catalina
I've been looking for other web info about hiking on Catalina. There's not a lot out there, but I did find some reviews of the Trans-Catalina Trail on yelp... And here's a picture of Shark Harbor from the Shark Harbor Overlook. ENJOY.
13 July 2010
Hacking Tower Ridge Road
Date: 10 July 2010
Who hiked: Me, Hubby, Thing2
Where: Middle Ranch - Hacking Tower Ridge Road - Camp Cactus Road
When: 0950-1225
Distance: 4.2 miles (measured on GPS)
Weather: sunny and clear (!)
No photos for this posting -- we forgot the camera!
We camped at Little Harbor again in our trusty tent camper, this time without Thing1 who is away at summer camp. It has been a gloomy June and July thus far and today started out no differently. We woke up on Saturday morning to the scoldings of a Northern shrike outside our door, ate pancakes, then piled in the truck for the trip to Middle Ranch.
We parked by the stables at Middle Ranch, saw some good birds here (black phoebe, northern raven, California quail, mourning dove, house finch, barn swallows), then walked up the road that leads to Thompson Reservoir. We followed the path around the Reservoir, where we saw a pair of ruddy ducks and two pairs of coots. One pair of coots also had a chick, ugly and orange-headed. If you have never seen a coot chick, you have to click on this link. They are remarkably unattractive. We also saw barn swallows, acorn woodpeckers, northern ravens, European starlings, and northern mockingbirds here.
We had one pair of binoculars between the three of us and Thing2 finally figured out how to use them properly. He was so excited about them that he carried them for extended periods of time, stopping to use them whenever he could. We had to chuckle as he said, "Wow, that cactus looks so close!" and tried to touch it with his fingers while looking through the field glasses.
We walked about 1/3 of the way around the Reservoir to where the trail heads uphill and hit the intersection of the Bulrush Canyon Trail at about 1040. At this point, the road that we were on was called Hacking Tower Ridge Road. We were not making good time as we had taken a lot of time to watch coots and to investigate the spillway at the Reservoir, which looks like it might be really exciting on a skateboard or scooter. Exciting and terrifying... Anyway, we were really moseying along, not hiking very quickly.
About five minutes past the Bulrush Canyon Trail, we reached the crest of the hill, where we had a lovely view of the windward side of the island. Here the trail follows the crest. Although it was sunny where we were, it was still gray and overcast back in Little Harbor! A red-tailed hawk was riding the thermals over the canyon and an American kestrel was hunting on an adjacent ridge.
Thing2 was entranced by the kestrel hovering and swooping down on its prey, which he watched through the binoculars.
There was a fenced area with enclosures in it on our right as we walked along the ridge and we followed an access road down to it. There were electric wires along the top of the fence and we thought we heard electricity running through them. This was odd as there wasn't anything inside the enclosure that needed protecting -- all the pens were empty. Thing2 really wanted to touch the electric fence and kept asking us what it would feel like if he did. We told him that it would hurt -- I know this from first-hand experience, having touched electric fences back when I was a curious child. He finally screwed up his courage and touched it, only to discover that it wasn't electrified. I think he was disappointed. The noise that we had heard was humming flags and lines flying in the breeze.
The pens inside the fence had been used to captively breed and foster Catalina Island foxes. The recovery plan was a rousing success and so there aren't any foxes there now, though the structures still remain. Today they were being used by a couple of spotted towhees...
Our trail intersected Camp Cactus Road, which we took to the right to head down the ridge to Middle Ranch Road. It wasn't long before we were back on Middle Ranch Road and walking back toward our truck. We stopped briefly at Quail Valley, where the Catalina Conservancy has a Catalina Island fox, Tachi, in a naturalized enclosure. We looked for Tachi -- who made only a brief appearance -- and then ate some goldfish and drank some water. Soon we convinced Thing2 to hit the road again, and we were back at our truck 15 minutes later.
Birds seen: Black phoebe, Northern raven, California quail, Mourning dove, House finch, Barn swallow, Acorn woodpecker, Northern mockingbird, American coot, Ruddy duck, European starling, Orange-crowned warbler, Chipping sparrow, Red-tailed hawk, American kestrel, Pacific slope flycatcher, Spotted towhee, Allen's hummingbird
Who hiked: Me, Hubby, Thing2
Where: Middle Ranch - Hacking Tower Ridge Road - Camp Cactus Road
When: 0950-1225
Distance: 4.2 miles (measured on GPS)
Weather: sunny and clear (!)
No photos for this posting -- we forgot the camera!
We camped at Little Harbor again in our trusty tent camper, this time without Thing1 who is away at summer camp. It has been a gloomy June and July thus far and today started out no differently. We woke up on Saturday morning to the scoldings of a Northern shrike outside our door, ate pancakes, then piled in the truck for the trip to Middle Ranch.
We parked by the stables at Middle Ranch, saw some good birds here (black phoebe, northern raven, California quail, mourning dove, house finch, barn swallows), then walked up the road that leads to Thompson Reservoir. We followed the path around the Reservoir, where we saw a pair of ruddy ducks and two pairs of coots. One pair of coots also had a chick, ugly and orange-headed. If you have never seen a coot chick, you have to click on this link. They are remarkably unattractive. We also saw barn swallows, acorn woodpeckers, northern ravens, European starlings, and northern mockingbirds here.
We had one pair of binoculars between the three of us and Thing2 finally figured out how to use them properly. He was so excited about them that he carried them for extended periods of time, stopping to use them whenever he could. We had to chuckle as he said, "Wow, that cactus looks so close!" and tried to touch it with his fingers while looking through the field glasses.
We walked about 1/3 of the way around the Reservoir to where the trail heads uphill and hit the intersection of the Bulrush Canyon Trail at about 1040. At this point, the road that we were on was called Hacking Tower Ridge Road. We were not making good time as we had taken a lot of time to watch coots and to investigate the spillway at the Reservoir, which looks like it might be really exciting on a skateboard or scooter. Exciting and terrifying... Anyway, we were really moseying along, not hiking very quickly.
About five minutes past the Bulrush Canyon Trail, we reached the crest of the hill, where we had a lovely view of the windward side of the island. Here the trail follows the crest. Although it was sunny where we were, it was still gray and overcast back in Little Harbor! A red-tailed hawk was riding the thermals over the canyon and an American kestrel was hunting on an adjacent ridge.
Thing2 was entranced by the kestrel hovering and swooping down on its prey, which he watched through the binoculars.
There was a fenced area with enclosures in it on our right as we walked along the ridge and we followed an access road down to it. There were electric wires along the top of the fence and we thought we heard electricity running through them. This was odd as there wasn't anything inside the enclosure that needed protecting -- all the pens were empty. Thing2 really wanted to touch the electric fence and kept asking us what it would feel like if he did. We told him that it would hurt -- I know this from first-hand experience, having touched electric fences back when I was a curious child. He finally screwed up his courage and touched it, only to discover that it wasn't electrified. I think he was disappointed. The noise that we had heard was humming flags and lines flying in the breeze.
The pens inside the fence had been used to captively breed and foster Catalina Island foxes. The recovery plan was a rousing success and so there aren't any foxes there now, though the structures still remain. Today they were being used by a couple of spotted towhees...
Our trail intersected Camp Cactus Road, which we took to the right to head down the ridge to Middle Ranch Road. It wasn't long before we were back on Middle Ranch Road and walking back toward our truck. We stopped briefly at Quail Valley, where the Catalina Conservancy has a Catalina Island fox, Tachi, in a naturalized enclosure. We looked for Tachi -- who made only a brief appearance -- and then ate some goldfish and drank some water. Soon we convinced Thing2 to hit the road again, and we were back at our truck 15 minutes later.
We saw two hacking stations on this hike. These hacking stations were used in a bald eagle restoration program completed by the Institute for Wildlife Studies on Catalina. A hacking station is used to introduce young raptors to new habitats and then to provide them with supplemental food without exposing them to humans. This supplemental food increases their chances of survival, especially when they are young and inexperienced in hunting. One hacking station was at the Reservoir and the remains of a second was on the Hacking Tower Ridge Road itself.
Birds seen: Black phoebe, Northern raven, California quail, Mourning dove, House finch, Barn swallow, Acorn woodpecker, Northern mockingbird, American coot, Ruddy duck, European starling, Orange-crowned warbler, Chipping sparrow, Red-tailed hawk, American kestrel, Pacific slope flycatcher, Spotted towhee, Allen's hummingbird
04 July 2010
Little Harbor to Boskey Dell
Date: 19 June 2010
Who hiked: Me, Hubby, Things 1 and 2
Time: 0900 - 1245 (approximate times)
Distance: 6.25 miles (measured on Google Earth)
Weather: cool, with overcast skies turning sunny
We had so much fun on our last camping trip, that I as soon as we got home, I went to Visitor's Services in Two Harbors and made reservations at Little Harbor for an additional three weekends during the summer. Our next campout was scheduled for the weekend that I returned from San Salvador Island in the Bahamas, which was also Father's Day weekend. Interestingly enough, we had the campsite directly opposite our campsite in May.
Hooking up the camper to the truck, setting up the camper, and then doing it all in reverse went better than the first time... we'll see if we're actually improving or if this was just luck!
The hike we planned for this weekend was through Boskey Dell, because I had heard that it was one of the most beautiful places on the island. We decided to hike east-bound on the Trans-Catalina Trail, then cut down to Rancho Escondido, cross the Rancho Escondido road, and then hike down into Boskey Dell. I was not sure that the Things would be up for a hike of this scale, but decided to purposefully mislead them about the length of this hike so as not to have a rebellion from the under-10 crowd at the beginning.
While most wildflowers are finished blooming by now, the hills were covered in a blanket of golden flowers (see below). In the morning the skies were gloomy -- June Gloom is a well-kept secret in usually-sunny SoCal -- but the field glowed with a yellow-orange warmth that cheered my heart. What did not cheer my heart, however, is Mr. Grumpy Pants (aka Thing2). He was in fine foul form this morning, grumping about everything. We chose to rely on a guessing game, rather than food, to raise him from his unpleasant attitude and, once again, it worked like a charm. He became almost human-like for most of the rest of the hike.
In about 1.6 miles, we reached the intersection of the TC trail and the trail to Rancho Escondido. The trail went downhill to the Rancho Escondido Road and along the way we were overtaken by a Jeep Ecotour and the driver teased Daniel and Zachary about eating up all the ice cream that they had on the truck. As we walked, we scared up Catalina quail and their babies, which are past the fluff-ball stage and flying now. There were Hyla regilla tadpoles in the stream at the bottom of the gulch. We reached the road in about 0.6 miles, crossed it, and walked the rest of the way (about 0.3 miles) to the bottom of the Canyon. This area is known as Boskey Dell, which I have heard is a bastardization of "Bosque del...", though what it is the bosque (forest) of, I don't know. There are some big trees here, mostly eucalyptus (introduced), sycamore, and some oaks. There were trees riddled with sapsucker holes, sapping dripping down the tree boles. The trail here follows a creekbed for about a quarter of a mile, then cuts back up to a real road/trail. Lots of poison oak along the waysides!
We reached a lovely shelter with wooden shingles and a huge stone fireplace at about 3.1 miles. It seemed a bit magical, actually, this pavilion in the middle of nowhere. It seemed old -- perhaps it was a throw-back to the old Wrigley days, but we welcomed a chance to hang out and relax. The boys "relaxed" by climbing a huge oak tree next to the shelter. We set out again after our short break, and another quarter of a mile (3.4 miles from the start), we made a hairpin turn and began to head uphill. It got quite steep and the roadbed was soft sandy dirt -- very difficult to walk in and not so fun... Fortunately, the road quickly flattened out and afforded us a nice view of the valley.
The rest of the hike seemed to go by quickly, perhaps because we stop to look at less and less as the hike wears on. We reached the Eagle Roost Road and followed it for a short distance before branching off onto the Cottonwood Dam Trail. The Cottonwood Dam Trail quickly drops off the face of the earth. Seriously, it goes straight down into Cottonwood Canyon. Like vertically. You could slide your way to the bottom but for the sharp pointy rocks in the road. I do not recommend hiking this trail in the opposite direction if you can avoid it. At 4.75 miles we were back on the Rancho Escondido Road, where we met up with a woman who was running from the Airport to Two Harbors (a distance of about 7.5 miles) and who thought she was on the Trans-Catalina trail. We helped her with directions and pointed out the TC trail on the ridge rising out of Little Harbor (which we could see from here) and off she went, jogging along. We turned down the Rancho Escondido Road, hoping to pick up a trail that would take us back over to the TC trail, close to where we started. Alas, that was not to be... we never did find a trail, even though one showed up on GoogleEarth. I suspect that it was a deer trail that was visible from space, but that was hard to find on groundlevel. So we stuck with the road. Even though we were still some ways from our campsite, we could at least see it from here!
Thing 2 was total toast at this point and we were still about a mile from our campground (in a best case scenario). He sat down in the road and insisted that he was not going to walk any more. There wasn't any other option other than him walking, so the three of us just kept going. We actually got out of sight, around a corner, before Thing 2 decided that he would take to his feet again. We reached Shark Harbor Overlook, where the road to the left takes one to Middle Ranch, and the sharp turn to the right takes you down to Shark Harbor and on to Two Harbors.
It was a relief to have our goal so close, especially given Thing2's reluctance to hike and I was even more relieved when Hubby found a shortcut across a horseshoe bend, then a second shortcut from the road down into Shark Harbor. At about 5.85 miles, we reached the beach at Shark Harbor and now my legs were tired. I can only imagine how tired the Thing 2 was at this point! Thing 1, like usual, was still hiking like a champ. Another 0.4 mile and we were back in our campsite!
I'm posting this from the mainland, so don't have my field notebook with me. Will post a list of birds seen as a comment. But I do remember seeing the orange on an orange-crowned warbler! It really was quite lovely.
Oh! And we saw frogs! Newly transformed Hyla regilla
Oh! And we saw frogs! Newly transformed Hyla regilla
Oh! And we saw frogs!!
June Gloom Go Away
I am not a fan of the beautiful weather that we get (nearly) all the time on the island, but this June Gloom gets to me. From about mid-May until July, the skies are gray and cheerless in the morning. I have wondered how many vacations have been marred by The Gloom. Yeah, The Gloom usually burns off by the afternoon, but it just doesn't feel like summer while it lasts. I would welcome this weather in November or December -- it seems the perfect weather for short winter days. But in the long days of summer, I want summer weather -- sunshine, puffy clouds, and blue skies!
So my advice to all you vacation planners out there: come to Catalina in September, August, or October. Glorious late-summer weather and the water is (almost) above 70 degrees.
So my advice to all you vacation planners out there: come to Catalina in September, August, or October. Glorious late-summer weather and the water is (almost) above 70 degrees.
23 June 2010
Little Harbor to Buffalo Reservoir
Date: 15 May 2010
Who hiked: Me, Hubby, Things 1 and 2
Time: 0900 - 1245 (approximate times)
Distance: 5.5 miles (measured on GPS)
Weather: overcast, cool
Having recently purchased a used pop-up tent camper, we decided to take our first family camping trip to Little Harbor. The pop-up was a purchase from some friends who are retiring and leaving Catalina. It is in good repair and has been happily used by Mr. and Mrs. Handlebar and their two boys for a number of years. Hubby and I have reached that auspicious age at which sleeping on the ground is not looked forward to. Well, perhaps the sleeping part is still looked forward to, but the unfolding and loosening of the back in the morning is not... Thus, the availability of this camper was most fortuitous and we snapped it up.
Saturday morning began quite early when the Things awoke around 6 AM, with empty tummies and open mouths. After breakfast and breakfast KP, we loaded up our daypacks with water, snacks, binoculars, and jackets and headed out. Our goal today was to hike along the Trans-Catalina trail, then head down to the Lower Buffalo Reservoir and pick up an access road that would take us back to Little Harbor.
We walked through the campground to the west-bound trailhead of the Trans-Catalina Trail. The TC trail heads straight up the ridge from Little Harbor. Even when trails are planned on Catalina, they rarely use switch-backs and this trail was no exception. However steep the uphill portion of the trail is here, it is mercifully short, so after a fairly brief and not very taxing climb, we were on the ridge and on our way toward the reservoir. It was an overcast and cool day -- one of those days when you feel cool to the touch, but are toasty warm on the inside -- as long as you are moving.
The Things played detective on the hike. First, we found shells on the ridge about 800 feet above the ocean. The Things spent some time thinking about how they might have gotten there. Thing 2 thought that birds might have carried them up to the ridge from the ocean, while Thing 1 suggested that the ridge had been underwater at one time... Later we found a tail from an alligator lizard on the trail, but no lizard. Thing1 guessed correctly that the lizard must have been attacked by a predator and dropped its tail to try to distract the predator. We suspected that the ploy was unsuccessful, because we figured that if the predator had been distracted by the tail, it would have eaten it. Since we found the tail, we figured that the predator had eaten the lizard and left the tail. I like having smart children.
The trail is flat with a number of uphill climbs, especially around the 2 mile mark. Because it was overcast, we didn't have much of a view, but I am sure that on a clear day this would be a most scenic hike. After about 2.25 miles, we turned right on a path that went down to the Little Harbor road near the Lower Buffalo Reservoir. It was clear that we needed to go to the right, but the trail immediately was overgrown with grasses, so the trail disappeared for a bit before reappearing. The path from here on out was full of seed-bearing grasses, which burrowed their way into our socks and shoes. There was much complaining from the Things about this and many stops to de-seed our socks. The hike down to the reservoir from the ridge was easy, not too steep, and very picturesque. Oaks dotted the hillside, with rock outcrops and flowers blooming. Bewick's wrens and Western meadowlarks were singing. We hiked down to the reservoir, then along the road until we got to the access road under a powerline.
We walked up the hill and at the crest, the road petered out to a grass-covered path that was barely discernable. We bushwhacked along the crest of this ridge, knowing that it would take us most of the way to Little Harbor. Here and there we had to dodge cactuses and throughout the hike we had to stop to pull seeds out of our socks. Bill took the lead so that he could knock some of the seeds off the plants before the boys came through and as he's blazing out trail, he hears the heart-stopping buzz of a rattlesnake. Everyone stopped until he quickly located Mr. Grumpy Snake, which was deep in a bush (*what kind?) directly in front of him. He backed off and we all watched the snake and i snapped a few pictures from a safe distance. Then we made a short detour around Mr. Grumpy Snake and continued on our way. The Things were excited about the snake and talked of little else for the rest of the hike.
Eventually, the "trail" took us back to Little Harbor road, which we followed the rest of the way to the campground. We walked through the campground and were buzzed by another rattlesnake. This snake quickly slid away into the tall grass when I stopped to take a few pictures. This encounter troubled me more than the first: I expect to find a snake in the scrub, but not in the grass near a campsite! That was a sobering thought as I often let the Things run amok once we're in the campground -- but not anymore!
We saw some cool insects on this hike, including a short-horned grasshopper, a darkling beetle (genus Eleodes), and some bugs (hemipterans) on bladder-pod plants. It was really interesting to see the hemipterans because there were multiple stages on the same plant: eggs (as in the picture), juveniles, and adults. In fact, most of the adults were in the process of making more bugs... if you know what I mean. And it was a fun opportunity to mess with my camera and its digital macro setting.
Birds seen: Killdeer, Red-tailed hawk, American kestral, Catalina quail, Western gulls, Northern raven, Barn swallow, European starling, Western meadowlark, Orange-crowned warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Chipping sparrow, House finch
Flowers in bloom: Opuntia (prickly pear), lupines, Indian paintbrush, Lilac mariposa, Catalina mariposa, Bindweed, Live forevers (Dudleya), Bush sunflowers (Encelia californica), yellow lilies, Yarrow, Mustard, Crystalline ice plant, Rattleweed
13 May 2010
Goat Whiskers Trail
Date: 7 May 2010
Who Hiked: Me
Route: West End Road and Goat Whiskers Trail
Time: 1130 - 1445
Estimated Distance: 7 miles
Weather: sunny, low 70s
So I have been remiss in my hiking lately and had intended to hike all last week. By Friday, I was feeling very frustrated with life, so around 11:30 I threw caution to the wind and headed out on a hike. I planned to hike out the West End Road, turn up the Goat Whiskers Trail, intersect the Water Tank Road, and take that over to the Trans-Catalina Trail (Silver Peak Trail) which would bring me down to the road that goes out to Wells Beach at Cat Harbor. My main concern was that the Things get out of school at 2:20, and I wanted to be home around that time. I knew that they would be fine at home for a short while, but they don't really like it if they get home and I'm not there. Not that they want to see me or talk to me, mind you, they just want to know that I'm available...
So I loaded up my daypack with water and snacks, my binoculars, a camera, and started out the West End Road. The island has been lovely this winter -- we've gotten more rain than normal and the vegetation has been lush and beautiful. Most of the flowers are fading now, but we've had a banner year with lupines, lilies, shooting stars, Indian paintbrush, and wild cucumber. The cucumber vines are now bearing spiky fruits (see left)
which are not sharp, but leathery. The fruits are eaten by wildlife; I find rinds along the road all the time. Some plants are still blooming: live-forever, shrubs, lilies, monkeyflowers, Mariposa lilies, and Opuntia.Hiking the West End Road is OK -- sometimes you have no traffic and meet no people, but other days you meet trucks and hikers. The dust is starting to fly again (it has been several weeks since we've had any rain), so meeting vehicles is unpleasant. As much as I dislike meeting vehicles when I am walking, it is not as hair-raising as when you are in your own vehicle. See my description of that from our Parsons Landing hike. Today I met a couple of trucks and several large groups of schoolkids hiking to Two Harbors from the Catalina Island Marine Institute (CIMI) at Cherry Valley. Most of the pre-teens were absorbed in their own conversations, but a few greeted me with "Hello hiker!".
I heard orange-crowned warblers, chipping sparrows, Bewick's wrens, and Catalina quail as I walked. One ground squirrel actually walked past me in the opposite direction. He appeared a bit tentative about the maneuver, which I thought was fairly bold, and he seemed to tiptoe past me while hugging the edge of the road.
The West End Road is also an interesting place to encounter some of the human history of the island. There are several
abandoned silver mines along the road (see right). Prospectors worked the islands from the 1860s to the 1920s, when it was given up as a lost cause. But remnants of mining operations are still visible on the island.About 2.5 miles later, I was at the trailhead for the Goat Whisker Trail, which heads up a ridge from Lions Head, the point just past Cherry Valley. The trail goes up (no switchbacks -- this is Catalina!), but the ridge is not as steep as some. So while it is most definitely a climb, one does not feel as if one is climbing a rock face.
The grasses are drying and their seeds get caught in socks, shoes, and other items and then poke you mercilessly. One of our friends had to take her dog to the vet to have one surgically removed from its cheek! They are decidedly unpleasant.
Periodically I would have to stop and pull them out of my socks. Worse that removing actual seeds are the phantom seeds that you could swear are there -- you can feel them -- but that you cannot find! Even though most vegetation is crisping up right now, there are still mariposa lilies blooming along the trail. These are lilac mariposa lilies (I think). There are also Catalina mariposa lilies, which have white petals with dark burgundy markings at their bases. Both are in the genus Calochortus.I did not have too much trouble with the climb, though I did have to stop a few times to catch my breath and rest my legs. Lizards (Uta stansburiana) were often skittering out of my way as I disturbed their mid-day siesta in the sun. One was so discombobulated by my approach that it actually ran around in circles for about four revolutions before it dashed off under a lemonadeberry bush.
It became clear quite quickly that I was not going to be able to complete my planned hike in the time that I had allotted. I was not yet to the junction of the Goat Whisker Trail and Water Tank Road (1.2 miles) and it was already after 1 PM! I was not breaking any land speed records that day! I decided that I would hike up to the junction and make a decision about the rest of the hike from there.
I arrived at Water Tank Road around 1:45 PM. If I decided to continue up Water Tank Road, I still had some serious uphill hiking to do before I got to the highest point of my hike. If I walked down Water Tank Road, I would come out on the West End Road just before Howland's Landing, which is nearly 4 miles from town. In the end, I decided to retrace my steps down the Goat Whisker Trail and hike back into town along the West End Road. The trip down was quick (~20 minutes) and tough on the old knees. As I made my way back into Two Harbors, my phone rang. Thing 1 was calling from our neighbor's house to ask where I was. Apparently Thing 2 had come home first, seen the note I left for them, and promptly tossed it aside. So Thing 1 wasn't sure where I was and was concerned that I wasn't home yet. By 2:45, I was back at my door!
When I came home, I looked at my planned hike on GoogleEarth and discovered that it would have been shorter to continue on my planned loop rather than turn around at the intersection with Water Tank Road. Ah well, live and learn. Next time I will look more closely at the distances before I start my hike!
08 May 2010
A Little Mainland Action
Oops! Here is a blog entry that I had drafted, but not posted!
Before my surgery in mid-January, Hubby and I decided to do a bit of birding on the mainland. I had heard that the Bolsa Chica Wetlands were great for bird watching, so we headed out there the day before my surgery. The wetlands are managed by the Bolsa Chica Conservancy and are some of the last intertidal wetlands in southern California. See the bottom of this post for a Google Earth image of the wetland and of the birdwatching route that we took.
When we arrived, the parking lot was packed because they were installing a new pedestrian bridge over an inlet that led to a marina. We walked around the intertidal wetlands that are near to the visitors' center, where we saw lots of killdeer and some great egrets. We then checked out the visitors' center, which is small but has a number of taxidermy specimens. Of course, seeing birds close up never gives one an accurate idea of what the bird will look like through one's binoculars -- take the ring-necked duck as one example. If you see a specimen, you can see the burgundy colored ring around the neck, but as a field mark, it's useless. But it was still worthwhile and interesting. There were species lists for birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles available here too.
Hubby and I crossed the inlet via the road (Warner Avenue) and after skirting the heavy machinery and smiling at the construction workers so they wouldn't yell at us, we picked up the trail that takes one along the waterway. To the left were open fields (Canada geese, turkey vulture, sparrows, meadowlarks). The tide was falling and we saw curlew, willets, whimbrels, sandpipers, and snowy egrets. We continued along this path until we got to the bridge that goes across a flood control gate. We did not cross this bridge, but walked along a narrow dike with a channelized waterway to our right and a wetland to our left. More great birds along here!
Altogether, we saw 40 species (and three new lifers: Western sandpiper, Least sandpiper, and California towhee) in two hours of walking -- not bad, even for two fairly mediocre birders. We might have missed some shorebirds, because that's not my strong suit and we didn't have a spotting scope.
Birds seen:
Pied-billed grebe
Western grebe
Double-crested cormorant
Great blue heron
Great egret
Snowy egret
Canada goose
Green-winged teal
Northern pintail
Northern shoveler
American wigeon
Ring-necked duck
Lesser scaup
Bufflehead
Ruddy duck
Turkey vulture
Red-tailed hawk
American kestrel
American coot
Killdeer
American avocet
Greater yellowlegs
Willet
Long-billed curlew
Marbled godwit
Western sandpiper*
Least sandpiper*
Ring-billed gull
Western gull
Forster's tern
Rock dove
Anna's hummingbird
House wren
European starling
California towheee*
Chipping sparrow
Savannah sparrow
Song sparrow
White-crowned sparrow
Western meadowlark
Before my surgery in mid-January, Hubby and I decided to do a bit of birding on the mainland. I had heard that the Bolsa Chica Wetlands were great for bird watching, so we headed out there the day before my surgery. The wetlands are managed by the Bolsa Chica Conservancy and are some of the last intertidal wetlands in southern California. See the bottom of this post for a Google Earth image of the wetland and of the birdwatching route that we took.
When we arrived, the parking lot was packed because they were installing a new pedestrian bridge over an inlet that led to a marina. We walked around the intertidal wetlands that are near to the visitors' center, where we saw lots of killdeer and some great egrets. We then checked out the visitors' center, which is small but has a number of taxidermy specimens. Of course, seeing birds close up never gives one an accurate idea of what the bird will look like through one's binoculars -- take the ring-necked duck as one example. If you see a specimen, you can see the burgundy colored ring around the neck, but as a field mark, it's useless. But it was still worthwhile and interesting. There were species lists for birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles available here too.
Hubby and I crossed the inlet via the road (Warner Avenue) and after skirting the heavy machinery and smiling at the construction workers so they wouldn't yell at us, we picked up the trail that takes one along the waterway. To the left were open fields (Canada geese, turkey vulture, sparrows, meadowlarks). The tide was falling and we saw curlew, willets, whimbrels, sandpipers, and snowy egrets. We continued along this path until we got to the bridge that goes across a flood control gate. We did not cross this bridge, but walked along a narrow dike with a channelized waterway to our right and a wetland to our left. More great birds along here!
Altogether, we saw 40 species (and three new lifers: Western sandpiper, Least sandpiper, and California towhee) in two hours of walking -- not bad, even for two fairly mediocre birders. We might have missed some shorebirds, because that's not my strong suit and we didn't have a spotting scope.
Birds seen:
Pied-billed grebe
Western grebe
Double-crested cormorant
Great blue heron
Great egret
Snowy egret
Canada goose
Green-winged teal
Northern pintail
Northern shoveler
American wigeon
Ring-necked duck
Lesser scaup
Bufflehead
Ruddy duck
Turkey vulture
Red-tailed hawk
American kestrel
American coot
Killdeer
American avocet
Greater yellowlegs
Willet
Long-billed curlew
Marbled godwit
Western sandpiper*
Least sandpiper*
Ring-billed gull
Western gull
Forster's tern
Rock dove
Anna's hummingbird
House wren
European starling
California towheee*
Chipping sparrow
Savannah sparrow
Song sparrow
White-crowned sparrow
Western meadowlark
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