Bombay Beach Run, Feb. 10, 2012

Today is the day for Bombay Beach. We left our abode, but couldn't find a place to have breakfast. So we ate granola bars, nuts and dried fruits. That was enough to keep us from gnawing each other's legs off.

A lone egret stands looking out at the Salton Sea.

We headed down Hwy. 111 toward the Salton Sea. We stopped at a visitor center and got to go on part of a birder's tour with two park rangers, one spotting, another telling us the types of birds we were seeing. It was quite entertaining and we enjoyed it a lot.

This is a favorite photo of the egrets all standing
watch looking for fish.  There are hundreds of
dead tilapia everywhere.  It's what they feed on and is the last living fish in the Salton Sea.

We saw lots but I really liked the black necked stilt bird. It was really pretty and had long legs. We saw ducks, avosets and ones called coots. My favorite birds were the egrets, and the pelicans although we didn't see any of those very close.

An egret that I happened to catch at the right moment.

I worked hard to try to get some good egret photos.  This
is one of my favorites.

We rode through Bombay Beach area. Interesting, but seemed mostly run down to me. Bikes, babes, birds and Bombay Beach. That was us. As we rode up and down a few of the streets, the housing seemed to be mostly trailer homes and motor homes. Lots of them had golf carts parked out in front. And a few people sitting on porches waved at us. Were we the most interesting thing happening in town today?

The black necked stilt.  This was another favorite bird I saw.

The next birding stop was down at the Sonny Bono National Wildlife Refuge. We were doing a long walk on this so we could wander around taking photos. I've had my long lens out and the big tripod I have to hold it up so I was going to pack that. It isn't heavy, but sure felt like it by the time we'd walked three miles or so. But it was so worth it because I think I got a few pretty good photos. Mostly we just had a great time wandering around the sea, looking, taking photos.

A shoveler.  These ducks are pretty cool as they
scoop food into their bills.  They put them just below the
waterline and move along like a Hoover vacuum.

As we were walking out through some maintenance area we ended up in, a park ranger came up and told us we were in a closed area. It wasn't really clear to us, so we told him that, very nicely of course. He let us out through a locked gate, we loaded up our bikes and left the park. It had closed about 45 minutes prior to that, so guess we were lucky to not have to spend the night.

Calipatria is where we ended up tonight, at a nice hotel. We've had excellent luck with hotels this trip. Nice places, discounted rates, and great treatment. This one had a jacuzzi outside that Jaz and I went in so we could rest our weary feet and bones from the long day of trekking about looking for birds.

Ross geese were flying over us in multiple groups.  They were
a beautiful sight to see and hear with their honking.

The hotel allows dogs and we had dogs in the room next to us. Was funny because when their humans went out the dogs would periodically howl. There must have been three or four because there were multiple voices, and one would set off the others. It was so mournful, and I just laughed out loud when it first started because it reminds me of my own kids.

I'm not sure what type of bird this was, but he was an odd
little thing with that huge log beak.  He was quite impressive.

And, best of all today? Lots of sun, and 85 degrees. I now have a sunburn. I was not prepared for that on this trip.

I liked this photo with the little ducks making duck wakes as they
swam away from us and the shore of the pond.