Kay and I took a two day trip to Anza Borrego State Park and a drive around the Salton Sea.  For me the highlights of the trip were not birds, but seeing the Colorado Desert in bloom.  A desert in bloom is more subtle than seeing the wildflowers of an alpine meadow, but spectacular in it’s own right.

We got a later than planned start so arrived at Anza Borrego in the late morning.  We briefly checked the visitor’s center before going to the area near the refuse disposal area looking to find Le Conte’s thrasher.  No luck, almost no birds at all.  Next we drove up Coyote Canyon where we had lunch, enjoyed seeing the desert in bloom (photos above) and took a very short hike up a trail.  Best birding was getting into a flock of maybe 30-40 sparrows.  Coolest thing was that at least several were Brewer’s sparrows and they seemed to be competing to see who could outsing the other, and with their “sparrow-that-swallowed-a-canary” song this was amazing.  Most seemed to be White-crowned, though we found at least 2 Lincoln’s mixed in.

On the ride out we came across what I initially thought might be Harris’s hawks perched in some dead trees beside the road, but on study of photos after eBird filter alerted me likely a bad call, they were three dark-form Swainson’s hawks, while several more circled overhead.  Oddly all the ones circling seemed to be light-form, and all the dark form were perched

We had dinner at the Red Ocotillo (Italian) and then dashed to the Palm Canyon trail near the campground to see what might be out at dusk.  We got to see a covey of about 20+ mostly Gambel’s quail, with at least a couple California Quail mixed in.  This is one of the few areas both species are found together, intergrades apparently occur, but none we saw looked like this.

We stayed at the same place we had used in 2013, the Oasis Inn, low priced at $105./ night for Borrego Springs, and pleasant with a comfortable King bed.

The next morning we were up at dawn, and were on the LeConte’s site as the sun rose, but too much wind greeted us. No thrasher, one Loggerhead shrike flew in low to excite us but the wrong bird, and in nearly 2 hours we could not locate the bird seen the day prior by at least one young birder.

Next to the waste water settling ponds, down a dirt road to the R of the entrance sign to the plant, and searched for a couple of hours for Crissal thrashers that had been seen there yesterday.  Not today for us.  We did get a couple FOY birds, Phainopepla and Costa’s hummingbird.

Now was decision time, keep up the thrasher hunt or go to the Salton Sea. We decided to roll on and spent the rest of the day driving the only 30+ miles to the south end of the Salton Sea and birding our way around the south end and up the east side.  Missed Yellow-footed gull, but saw Abert’s towhee, Black-tailed gnatcatcher, Verdin, and overall had a good day.  13 ABA FOY birds for me on the trip.

Home a bit after 10PM and time to crash.