San Joachin Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary

After several days trying to recover from the drive back from Idaho and possibly fighting off sickness once again, we decided to get out for a bit to get some pictures, fresh air and sunshine. We headed out to the San Joachin Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary in Orange County. It is actually a water treatment plant. 

There were a lot of different birds here. We spent a lot of time chasing some of the smaller birds in through trees and bushes with varying success. We only really took pictures into one of the ponds although we peeked into two others. They were mostly surrounded by a lot of reeds and there were not a ton of birds in them.

There were quite a few people going up and down the trails...which was pretty irritating since the birds are already skittish and the people were not quietly walking and enjoying what the preserve offers but using it as their local park to play or jog through...which scared the birds away.

The pond we spent a lot of time at was not quite quiet and serene either as big groups of people came through together. I don't know if it was like a tour bus or what but it took them some time to get through our area. Some seemed to be birders so they at least seemed to be quieter and more respectful of their surroundings that the riffraff at Whitewater. 

The shorebirds and the Red-tailed Hawk were not really disturbed by the people going through though. We didn't want to stay out there too long though and get caught up in the afternoon traffic of people returning home from work, so we cut the day somewhat short. We only managed to see a fraction of the place, so we will definitely be back.

We started our birding journey in the last quarter of this year, after getting my long telephoto lens for my birthday. We had collected a few bird pictures throughout the years here and there as part of the nature photography we enjoyed. After compiling and sorting through all our pictures, we have nearly a hundred and thirty birds on our life list!

Idamaho

Shortly before Christmas, we made the long and painful drive up to Idaho to see the girls. Since the gas is much more reasonably priced outside of the state, we did not drive below the speed limit at a crawl to save as much gas as possible as we have done in the past. We just don't have the stamina for it anymore. We don't bother stopping for fast food. It's all crap now and expensive to boot.

We made it up to Idaho in record time. The girls made us dinner while we got unpacked and settled in. Luckily, all the roommates went home for the holidays and we were able to be a little more comfortable hanging out at their apartment with them. 

They did get their Christmas presents early this year so there were no gifts to open except for their stockings.

They still got to open early. One, because we didn't want to wait...and two, because we thought they could use some of it while we were there.

On top of this, Caitlyn got a new upgrade to her camera once again because Christian moved up to a mirrorless camera for his Birthday/Christmas present. Emily got his old zoom lens.

And since the girls didn't have any other ideas or plans of what to do, we took them birding the next day! We got a later start than we had intended so we stayed close to home and checked out a neighborhood Nature Park first.

It wasn't really big and there wasn't a ton to do there but we still managed to get several more lifers none-the-less. Next, we headed out to Egin Lake. It's a seasonal lake. It is currently dry. It was kind of windy and cold, so there wasn't much to find. Plus there were a ton of people on the OHV trails making a racket nearby. We only found some American Robins and European Starlings in the trees. We left when it started raining a bit.

We decided to call it a day and head home to grab a late lunch. Afterwards, Christian took a quick nap while the girls and I headed to the market to prepare for Christmas and the next few days of our visit. We made some Winter Solstice Soup for dinner. 

On Christmas morning, we walked around the campus to see what kinds of birds we could find in the gardens there.

We also got a few other animals while we were out. Mostly some fox squirrels which are a lot cuter than the ones we see around here. My favorite birds were the Black-capped Chickadees. I was ecstatic to get another chance of photographing them. We originally got them at the Nature Park but was not completely happy with the results of my efforts.

The problem is that the cutest birds are the smallest and either shyest or just won't ever sit still for a moment. They flit around tirelessly and are so hard to capture. Not only are they always on the move, but they move in and out of the shadows and spend much of their time in the thickest trees/bushes that make it difficult to capture, much less focus on.

Afterwards, we went home to work on other things. The girls cut down and decorated their own personal Christmas trees :)

We had picked up a rib roast for dinner. We made some cinnamon rolls as well for dessert. Afterwards, we decided to get some fresh air and walk around a bit after our big heavy meal and decided to go look for some Christmas lights to practice using our cameras with. We started with just going down the main street in town.

There were too many people lurking around still and most of the interactions we've had with people in Idaho has not been very good. We've decided that Idaho drivers are even worse than those from Utah, if you can believe that. We decided to go back and finish up on campus where it is at least a bit quieter.

When we finally got back to the girls' apartment. We were ready for dessert.

There was still no snow to be had. It has been raining on and off during our visit so far. The next day was a bit darker and cloudier than it has been so we were much more likely to get more rain that day. We decided to risk it and go out anyway to see if we can get lucky and get a pocket of dry weather. We went to check out Mud Lake. It is supposed to be a decent place to go birding. We could not find ready access to the lake where we could definitely see birds. We drove around a bit but it was a bit wet out. We finally pulled over to a spot where we thought we could access the lake but the initial departure from the road was steep and slippery/muddy. Christian and I ran out to see what we could discover. Emily was driving and Caitlyn was really cold for some reason. 

The place had definite promise, but it started raining again before we could even get to the lake and the birds took off flying. Apparently, while we were gone, Emily decided to follow us but before she got too far, she already saw the gigantic flocks of Tundra Swan taking off and decided to just go back to the car since it started raining again. I think we would like to attempt it again if we go back up at a different time of year.

Emily didn't sleep very well the night before so she took a nap after lunch. I trimmed Caitlyn's hair as she had cut it on her own while she's been away and she wasn't entirely happy with the shape of it. After which, Christian and Caitlyn went to run some errands and I took the opportunity to shower after cleaning up and puttering around in the kitchen. I finally got Emily up after a while and we made some Chex Mix. Emily had also started a boule of sourdough bread. She's been making no-knead bread lately and we brought her some sourdough starter to see if she liked that. All her roommates have been ecstatic to help polish off all her fresh baked bread.

By the time we finished dinner, I was pretty wiped out and ended up going to bed early. Everyone else has been taking naps on and off during the visit except me and I think I just needed to crash at some point. Christian was helping Caitlyn back-up her computer files and Emily was working on Dark Table. She was waiting to put her bread in the oven as it was going a little slower since it was a little colder that night. I was a little upset to have had to cut the evening short as it was going to be our last evening there, but I was too tired to do anything.

The next morning, we got an early start as we were headed home and it would be a very long drive. We brought camping gear in case we wanted to stop along the way, but the weather was not going to cooperate. We got a few pieces of Emily's bread for the road. We would be lucky if we can get out of Idaho before the roads got icy. In fact, we hit snow by the time we got to Pocatello along with a horrible head wind. That was probably the worst of the weather. We hit patches of light snow and rain, along with cloudy patches with even a few patches of sun on and off through Idaho and Utah. We evidently just missed some heavier weather patterns in some areas. 

Traffic mostly flowed until we got outside of Las Vegas. At that point, it turned into a nightmare. The 15 freeway became a parking lot. The first obstacle was a semi-truck that evidently hit the middle divider and flipped itself over on the other side. We started moving a bit after that but not for long. After many miles of stop and go traffic mostly due to the moronic drivers in the passing lane going slower than the people on the slower lanes or going at the exact same speed as everyone else making it impossible to get by, we couldn't take it any more and decided to get off the freeway and take some of the smaller roads through the desert. It would take us down a longer route, but at least we would be moving and less aggravated. Needless to say, it took many hours more to get home than to drive to Idaho in the first place.

Whitewater and the San Jacinto Wildlife Preserve

The next weekend, we drove out to the Preserve at Whitewater. The place was amazingly beautiful this time of year.

We were so excited, but as we got out of the car to get our gear ready, tons of other people were arriving. I would say that they are not normally people you expect to run into early in the morning at a Preserve. You expect to see them at the Outlet stores or malls. They were loud and obnoxious. They were even doing stupid TikTok videos or something in the parking lot. We tried to disappear down one of the trails hoping to get away from them but they were everywhere and we ran into them or they followed behind wherever we went. 

We were there to get away from people and try to relax and it wasn't happening. We decided to cut our losses and leave. There was some little girl waiting on her own beside one of the buildings singing loudly like a strangled cat. One of the obnoxious city dwellers was in the parking lot complaining about the noise because, they too, went out there to get some "peace and quiet." That was rich.

We walked around at first outside of the Preserve at first. There were a few birds here and there but nothing unusual except for a little Rock Wren.

After a while, we were just frustrated and hot. The last straw came when what looked like a bus load of people got dropped off and were walking by into the Preserve. We left after that.

Instead of heading straight home, we decided to check out the San Jacinto Wildlife Preserve on our way back. We didn't have high hopes for it and had a tough time finding the opening to to area, but it was a lot nicer than we had imagined with lots of variety.

There was a series of different ponds as you go through. I think that in the end, we only just touched the surface of what was available there and we eventually ran out of both time and light.

Besides the obvious excitement of the various raptors we ran into, we were most excited to spot a Mountain Bluebird. I was not happy with the pictures that I ended up with. Most of them were grainy and blown out because they were horribly backlit by the setting sun. After that, we were super excited to run into a flock of Red-winged Blackbirds. Everybody mentions how common they are, but we'd never seen them. Plus, they make a neat and eerie song as they are perched in trees together and it was super cool hearing it all around us.

All in all, we'd definitely go back to the San Jacinto Wildlife Preserve. I am excited to see what we can find further in. If I go back to the Whitewater place, I think I will have to go back with Caitlyn on a weekday or something, when there might be a little less people hopefully.

A Walk in the Neighborhood

Over the weekend, Christian and I got up early to take a walk in the neighborhood. We wanted to try to catch the coyotes out in the meadow where we find them resting most mornings. On the way, we spotted a skunk and a rabbit. The coyotes were out there but they started moving off before we could get too close. I saw three of them scattered at the end of the meadow.

We walked over to the trailhead to see if we could find some birds. Amazingly, there were very few birds down the trail that we took. On our way back, we found a Red-tailed Hawk sitting on top of a tree, surveying the area below. We set up to take some pictures and video. 

By the time we finished, the sun was well up and we headed back for breakfast. The donkeys were out eating and walking up the middle of the street. I don't mind when they are out on the mountain in the areas they used to always roam, but I am sick to death of being woken up in the middle of the night because they are stomping around my driveway, destroying my plants and birdfeeders and people's mailboxes, because they use them as scratching post. I am sick of having to get up to then have to shovel pounds of donkey shit because the city won't control them. 

The city is building more and more houses and warehouses on the hillsides, shrinking their habitat while also letting the donkeys breed like rabbits and taking over our streets and neighborhoods.

Big Morongo Canyon Preserve

Christian has been really struggling with work this year. He started off teaching during what seemed to be the worst time possible. Covid hit just a year into him teaching but every year has brought more problems and struggles. The kids are very rough and don't want to do or learn anything, but it is the administrators and other teachers that seem to always cause the worst problems. Even he custodians and security employees seem to just refuse to do their job and no one holds them accountable. It is just chaos at school every day and Christian struggles to keep a calm, safe and inviting atmosphere for his kids and teach something to the small handful of students that actually care to learn anything. This year, he has been given the most amount of students of all the other teachers as well.

He had an especially hard time at the beginning of the month and took a day off in the middle of the week to try to regroup. He got a substitute to take his class and we drove out to the Big Morongo Canyon Preserve to take some pictures. We originally wanted to go during the Thanksgiving Break but he hadn't really felt up to it.

When we arrived, we were a little worried as it was kind of windy out and there were an unusual amount of cars already in the parking lot. There was also a small group of people gathered in the middle of the parking lot. I recalled that they do birding walks on Wednesdays and when we got out equipment out to start down the trail, one of the birders asked if we were joining them for their bird walk. We decided to try it out and join them. It was certainly an interesting experience as they immediately started spotting and recognizing the bird calls around us. One of the first birds they spotted was a small Sharp-shinned Hawk way off in the distance. I did not get a great photo of it but I was able to spot it and record it. They had hoped to find an owl for us but that was not meant to be. After the initial spotting of some small birds, everything slowed down. We had to really have to work hard to find anything.

They said that it was unusual to have to work so hard to find birds. We managed to see a few more but the birds were mostly hidden and hard to capture. We got to walk in the closed off areas as we just followed where they were leading. They didn't seem to care about the damaged areas so we didn't either. It was still a beautiful walk, although, it would have been a lot better without the gusts of wind...which is probably why a lot of birds were not out and about.

We did find a dead Long-eared Owl in the closed off section. They were trying to decide what it had died of and whether they should take it into the Ranger.

We walked a bit farther with the group but ended up separating from them as they headed back over to the nature center as we were taking some pictures and videos of the surrounding areas.

We eventually ended back up there and at the feeding stations to see what birds were around.

I was most excited to see the Oak Titmouse there. It was one of the birds we saw flitting in and out of the bushes but I could not even get close to capturing. It was still aggravatingly difficult to get a good picture of it, but I was determined to get it.

Christian spent more of his time getting some of the birds in flight in the neighboring trees and surrounding area but he managed to also get the best Oak Titmouse picture!

You never know what to expect when we are out birding...either in some preserve or in the neighborhood. On this trip, I also barely got a somewhat obscured shot of a Lark Sparrow which I had not gotten before. I was a glad to have at least gotten it, but a bit disappointed that the shot wasn't that great. A couple of weeks later, I was taking a few pictures in my driveway and lo and behold, the Lark Sparrow was just casually feeding along with some of the more common sparrows under our feeder in the driveway!

I have managed to get some birds at a distance, especially on the wire in the back of our house. I got my first Western Bluebird a couple of months there and then got a bit better pictures of them when we went out to Newport last month. Now the Bluebirds are common birds that flit around the house. They are still not as common as the birds that come to our feeders but it is no longer an unusual occurence. 

I got my first Phainopepla some months ago on the ash tree in our backyard. Now we see them flitting in and out of all the trees around us.We saw our first Thrasher and Towhee here at the Morongo Preserve and didn't even know that we had them in our neighborhood until afterwards. So sometimes you just never notice them and sometimes it must be a slight change in their migration patterns or we are just lucky to capture them in the neighborhood because they don't come that often. There have been many birds like that.