We spent two nights in Borrego Springs (12 & 13 Apr), birding here and there in Anza-Borrego State Park and vicinity during the mornings and afternoons [and swimming or snoozing in the heat of the day]. The early morning hours were wonderful. On the 13th, we wandered out into Mesquite Bosque (above), near Borrego Springs, and found a singing Crissal Thrasher (right). There is only a tiny population in San Diego County. The air was filled with birdsong: the songs of nesting Lucy's Warblers and migrant Brewer's Sparrows among them.

We also visited the trailhead to Borrego Palm Canyon early, and were surprised to find this Great Egret stalking lizards in the parking lot and pupfish in the little pond. In this shot (left) the egret has just carefully stalked and grabbed a Side-blotched Lizard (which we couldn't even see until the egret grabbed it); the lizard is halfway down the gullet in the photo. An egret away from water recalls prehistoric dinosaurs to me — the look in its eye is scarily reminiscent of the 'raptors' of Jurassic Park. We had no great rarities in Anza-Borrego — although birds like Bell's Vireo and Crissal Thrasher are quite local — but I was pleased with various photographic opportunities, the results of which are selectively shown below:

Verdin Borrego Palm Canyon Anza-Borrego SP

Costa's Hummingbird Visitor Center grounds Anza-Borrego SP

Canyon Wren Sentanac Canyon Anza-Borrego SP

We ran into Paul Jorgensen, contributing author to Barbara Massey's 1998 book, Guide of Birds of the Anza-Borrego Desert, at lunch one day; a Ventana Wildlife Society T-shirt I was wearing provided the introduction. He invited us to their annual spring hawk watch late that afternoon, where volunteers scan the skies at predetermined times and places (below). The Anza-Borrego hawk watch has discovered a major passage route for Swainson's Hawk (right), sometimes recording hundreds in a day. We saw only two dark-morph birds — both flew into evening roosts in date palms and would leave the next morning (and the photo is actually of a different SWHA seen the next day in Imperial County) — yet it was a fine opportunity to meet local birders and learn of their projects.

Our final morning (14 Apr) was spent around the south end of the Salton Sea, Imperial County. A weather front had arrived with high winds that would turn into showers later that afternoon. By mid-day the usually placid and dead-calm Salton Sea had been whipped into a froth (above), wrathy as a rattlesnake. We toiled on to Red Hill, however, and turned up two nice rarities: an alternate-plumaged Ruddy Turnstone (below left) and a basic-plumaged Ruff (below right). Guy McCaskie tells us that this appears to be the same Ruff first located at the exact same site (east side of the causeway out to Red Hill) in July 2005 and remaining into February 2006. It had disappeared for two months, however, and was missed again the next day (15 Apr). We judged it a female on size but some details of plumage and the bright yellow-orange legs might suggest a runt male (per McCaskie).

Conditions were not good for migration on 14 April, but we did come upon this female Gila Woodpecker (below) working on a nest hole in the Brawley cemetery. In California, this species is restricted to the Colorado River and the Imperial Valley.

So will wrap up the trip report with nice photos of two owls, one from each county (below): Burrowing Owl (left) at Fig Lagoon, Imperial Co., and a Long-eared Owl at the tamarisk grove near Yaqui Wells, Anza-Borrego SP, San Diego Co. This adult owl was perched at the opposite end of the grove from the Long-eared Owl nest that has two fledglings.

And we head home to Monterey, hoping the rain there will be gone, and leaving beyond Paul Jorgensen in the desert, at his hawk watch as the final rays of the sun hit the distant hills . . .

All photos © 2006 Don Roberson; all rights reserved.
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