In September of 1999, Tom and I had a wedding to attend
at Big Bear in southern California. We decided to go a day early and
investigate a couple of places for wildlife. I had been to Big Morongo
once before and been very impressed, and I was also curious about Joshua Tree
National Monument.
We arrived at LAX in the afternoon and headed east to a mall to pick up Tom's
tux. (He was one of the groomsmen.) Afterwards, we continued to Palm
Springs, and headed to a motel just north of Big Morongo. The next
morning, I got up at the crack of dawn, and headed to the refuge. It was
closed, of course, and the gates locked. I decided to continue on the
highway, and see if I couldn't find a backroad and scare up some desert
wildlife.
I didn't scare up anything but a jackrabbit, but I returned to the refuge and took a hike around the scrubby lowland area. As in my previous experience there, the birding was incredible. There were California Thrashers, Verdins, Costa's Hummingbirds, Nuttall's Woodpeckers, all sorts of warblers, vireos, and sparrows, Lesser Goldfinches, Black Phoebes, and a Red-shouldered Hawk.
Afterwards, I met up with Tom for breakfast and we
headed up to Joshua Tree National Monument. The scenery there was very
impressive, and the weather was perfect: clear and sunny. We drove up to a
viewpoint and in spite of the distant smog, we were able to see the Salton Sea
in the distance. The only birdlife, though, was a Black-throated Sparrow near the parking lot, and other than
that, there were a lot of lizards sunning themselves on the
rocks.
We decided to take a
hike to an old mine. The trail was clearly marked, yet we managed
to get lost. We finally turned around, but now we couldn't even
find the trail we had come on, and ended up squeezing through a narrow, rocky canyon.
That was pretty good luck birding-wise. In addition to
seeing some beautiful Swallowtail butterflies, I found a Scott's Oriole, a Dusky
Flycatcher, a Yellow Warbler, Rock and Canyon Wrens and a Pacific-slope
Flycatcher. That was a pretty nice detour!
As we were driving out of the park, we noticed a rather well-fed Coyote walking along the road, and then another one in the scrub. They seemed a little plump for your average wild animal.
We finally had to head up to Big Bear to check in to our hotel for the
wedding. The next morning, I was awake at 5am as always, and couldn't
resist taking the car out to go find some birds. I had some great luck. At
the north end of the valley, there was a dry lake bed that was full of Horned
Larks and Western Meadowlarks. At the south end, there was dry pine
habitat with Mountain Chickadees, Pygmy Nuthatches and Purple Finches.
There were bluebird nestboxes by an airfield, where I spotted several
Western Bluebirds and a Mountain Bluebird. In the lake, I also found a
family of Wood Ducks.
That night, the other (mostly LA-based guests) were utterly amazed that we had come to southern California a day early, and had gone to see... the desert. People tend not to appreciate the wonders in their own backyard!