Salton Sea Area Trip Report: 7-8 February, 2015

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Reeds and mountains (D. Roberts 2/8/15)

It was a great trip. The weather was near-perfect – no one would have complained if it were 5° lower – and no rain to turn the caliche roads to mud and tires into slicks. Our radios worked, no cases of food poisoning or scorpion stings, no one was seriously late, and many state, USA or life birds were found. Zone-tailed Hawk, Crested Caracara and Crissal Thrasher were the only notable misses. It’s best to look for Crissal very early in the morning, difficult to do when you cannot be simultaneously everywhere.

The Davis Rd. salt works and/or salt bath spa (D. Roberts 2/8/15)

My general impression of the birdlife of the south end of the Salton Sea (SESS) is that overall numbers declined since 2012, but diversity is holding steady, or even up a little. We still had large numbers of certain species: Snow & Ross’s Geese, Northern Shoveler, Northern Pintail, Cattle Egret, White-faced Ibis, Ring-billed Gull and California Gull. Although our “counts” are extremely rough approximations, even these species seemed somewhat fewer. Other species definitely seemed reduced in numbers, for example: American White Pelican, Black-necked Stilt, Common Raven, and Red-winged Blackbird. Then again, most of those species are found in flocks – miss one flock and you miss most of that species. Perhaps such variances mean nothing at all.

Neotropic Cormorants – Note white border to gular pouch (J. Waterman 2/7/15)

We checked out two new areas. A few miles east of Brawley is the New River Wetlands Project, with scrub surrounding a pond about 100m X 300m. A large flock of Great Egrets roosted in some nearby trees. The Crested Caracara reported to be in the vicinity did not appear; later we learned it prefers late afternoon. While Marsh Wrens madly burbled in the reeds, we studied cormorants roosting on water-snags, trying to figure out which – if any – was a Neotropic. After much scratching of heads, Joyce cleverly noted that several had a varying amount of narrow white border to their orange gular pouches, a field mark I had forgotten. [Neotropic Cormorants are casual visitors to SE Calif; I last saw one here in 1986.]

We found some of our target birds at the Wister Unit parking lot: Gambel’s Quail, Verdin, Abert’s Towhee and the only Inca Doves of the trip. An immense amount of brush as well as the nature trail is gone from the west side of Davis Rd. for reasons we couldn’t guess, leaving a barren moonscape. A stop at the old salt works spa produced our first Burrowing Owl sitting on a concrete box-like affair, while a short distance away we found a large mixed flock of Rough-winged, Tree, Barn and Cliff Swallows resting on overhead wires and poking about in a muddy field. Many of the Tree Swallows were blindingly iridescent blue.

Burrowing Owl at his burrow (J. Waterman 2/7/15)

The Roseate Spoonbill, a major target bird for California, proved to be at the end of Garst Rd. as reported, albeit at a vast distance, tiny even in our best scopes. Its off-white, very pale pink plumage was spotted by David, I don’t know how. I suspect that some of our 16 birders – even after many minutes of viewing – remained unconvinced. I was fortunate to see it crane its neck, giving me a glimpse of its large gray spoonish bill.

Gambel’s Quail (J. Waterman 2/7/15)

The Salton Sea Park HQ at the west end of Sinclair Rd. is a great place for lunch. Bathrooms, shaded picnic tables, water, and viewing platforms to check out the geese, many of which are real – not cutout figures, pivoting on poles in the breeze. Several seed feeders bring birds in close, particular Abert’s Towhees, Gambel’s Quail and various doves. Verdin build their globular nests in the mesquite trees. I bumped into birding compatriot Roy Poucher who kindly mentioned that a Yellow-footed Gull was out on the sea-edge, within walking distance, and after lunch we make the trek.

Common Ground Dove – note scaly breast & brown-spotted wings
(J. Waterman 2/7/15)

As usual with rare gulls, they’re buried amongst thousands of similar gulls. David and I scoped the shoreline, starting from opposite ends of a long line of gulls disappearing into the distance in both directions, almost all Ring-bills with a few scattered Herring. Much to my surprise, I found it not far away, its large size and dark gray back obvious – well, sort of obvious– among hordes of lighter gulls. But it was lying down. So we all watched, wishing it would rise.

The Yellow-footed Gull stands among lesser mortals (J. Waterman 2/7/15)

It wouldn’t move, so we clambered down the stone embankment, the gulls beconing restive as we reached the edge of their comfort zone. Our target gull stood up, we all admired its bright yellow legs and congratulated ourselves on our good fortune, and left.

Sandhill Cranes (J. Waterman 2/7/15)

At Unit One – the Sonny Bono unit at the SW corner of the sea – we found a single White-fronted Goose within a large flock of Snow and Ross’s Geese, with Sandhill Cranes field-gleaning in the distance. Sundown approached. We made it back to Keystone Rd. SE of Brawley by 4:30, with plenty of time to watch Cattle Egrets and White Pelicans soar past enroute to the sea, gulls and ducks and White-faced Ibis splash down in the embanked pond nearby, and especially for the ululating of the Sandhill Cranes as they spiraled down to the water. It was, as always, a magical moment.

Gila Woodpecker (J. Waterman 2/7/15)

Sunday morning began with a drive through the tree-filled SW Brawley residential neighborhood, which yielded our first pair of Gila (Hee-laa) Woodpeckers. Cattle Call Park had more, plus Cedar Waxwings and other small birds. No Zone-tailed Hawks appeared. We checked out another new area, known locally as Carter & Fites, a small undeveloped brushy forest, mostly mesquite, where Crissal Thrashers could be found. Alas, none were. And not much else, either, except a few Phainopeplas, a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, some Verdin, and a honeybee who was obsessed with my hearing aids.

We shot back over to the east side of Brawley to revisit the Neotropic Cormorants with Saturday’s late-arriving contingent. That done, we headed home via Hwy 111 on the now-closer east side of the sea, which led us to try for the Lesser Black-backed Gull at Salt Creek, halfway up the sea’s eastern edge. It was a virtual repeat of the prior day’s Yellow-footed Gull search, with two differences: the thousands of other gulls were mostly California, and I incautiously wore sandals to stroll upon what I thought to be a sandy

Birders on the shelly beach at Salt Creek (D. Roberts 2/8/15)

beach. Not. Sand. Tiny razor-sharp shells, trillions of them, knee-deep in places. Despite this, we actually found the gull, dark-backed among the pale gray gulls, heavily streaked on head and neck, bright light eye and yellow feet, dark wing-tipped below, a dead ringer for one of the pictures in Gulls of the Americas. I’ve searched for this annually reported gull at the sea several times before, often wondering if it was someone’s hypnogogic hallucination.

Celebratory date shakes all around.

The gorget of the male Costa’s Hummingbird is purple with long side ‘extensions’ (J. Waterman 2/7/15)

Useful Resources:
Finding Birds at the Salton Sea and in Imperial County, California; Henry Detwiler & Bob Miller; 2012; $18.
Available at Buteo Books and elsewhere.
Southwest Birders Web Site

Links to prior trips:   February 2012     February 2010
Trip list counts from 1 to 10 are reasonably accurate. All larger numbers are estimates intended only to reflect relative abundance.  [Chuck Almdale]
H – Heard Only
In Bold – Bird of Special Interest