Southern California Trip Summary
Stuart Healy and clients, March 8-25, 2008
Trip Log (journal entries)	Trip Species List	Trip Photo List (links)

I spent much of the month of March in Southern California working with three different clients. All three trips were booked back in June and July of 2007. A fourth trip scheduled for the last week of March was subsequently cancelled. Target birding was the only objective on each trip and the nucleus of target species was mostly the same for each client (i.e. the Southern California specialties). This type of trip requires a minimum itinerary of 5 days with single night hotel stays. Relaxing it isn't.

Most of the birding was done along the immediate coast from San Diego to north of Morro Bay (with emphasis in the northern section of the route); and two inland trips to the Salton Sea. Maximizing the number of species seen was never an objective and I recorded only 201 species during the entire trip. Nothing unexpected was seen, although a hybrid Anna's x Rufous (or possibly Allen's) Hummingbird was of note. This is documented with a photo -- see journal for March 9 or trip photo list.

My basic strategy for such trips is always to plan an itinerary for the "must have" specialties. Any additional time can then be used to work on the more difficult species and rarities that show up within the scope of the itinerary. For the most part, this worked well and misses were few. Overall, the weather was excellent with plenty of sunshine and mostly calm days. Two of the three trips to Santa Cruz Island went as planned. One was cancelled due to bad weather and had to be rescheduled. Note: future clients should anticipate such cancellations (it's happened to me fairly often).

March 8-13, 6 days, 157 species recorded; Jim and Joan Clapp, Hebron, KY. go to journal
Adding a sixth day allowed us to start in Arizona (west of Phoenix) for Le Conte's Thrasher. The remaining five days were in California.

31 targets located:
Pacific Loon, Clark's Grebe, Brandt's & Pelagic Cormorants; California Quail, Black Oystercatcher, Pacific Golden-Plover, Wandering Tattler, Black Turnstone, Surfbird, Heermann's, California, Glaucous-winged & Glaucous Gulls; Elegant Tern, Common Murre, Pigeon Guillemot, Spotted Dove, Nuttall's & White-headed Woodpeckers; California & Le Conte's Thrashers; Wrentit, California Gnatcatcher, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Oak Titmouse, Island Scrub-Jay, Yellow-billed Magpie, California Towhee, Golden-crowned Sparrow and Tricolored Blackbird.

2 targets sought and missed: Eurasian Wigeon and Yellow-footed Gull.

March 14-15, 2 days; go to journal
personal days spent on photography

March 16-20, 5 days, 139 species recorded; Brendan O'Sullivan, Mississauga, ON. go to journal
A first day cancellation and rescheduling of the Santa Cruz Island trip necessitated a change of itinerary that had a ripple effect. Although we made the changes without adding a day, we only managed to do this by skipping a trip to the Salton Sea and didn't look for Yellow-footed Gull.

29 targets located:
Clark's Grebe, Brandt's & Pelagic Cormorants; California Quail, Black Oystercatcher, Pacific Golden-Plover, Wandering Tattler, Black Turnstone, Surfbird, Glaucous-winged & Western Gulls; Elegant Tern, Common Murre, Pigeon Guillemot, Spotted Dove, Allen's Hummingbird, Red-breasted Sapsucker, Nuttall's & White-headed Woodpeckers; Pacific-slope Flycatcher, California Thrasher, Wrentit, California Gnatcatcher, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Oak Titmouse, Island Scrub-Jay, Yellow-billed Magpie, Townsend's Warbler and California Towhee.

2 targets (1 hard) sought and missed: Hermit Warbler and Tricolored Blackbird

March 21-25; 5 days, 164 species recorded; David Patick, Huntington, WV. go to journal
This was a slightly different trip since David had already birded a little in California. Some of the species typically sought were not targets (including Brandt's Cormorant, California Quail, California Thrasher, California Gnatcatcher and California Towhee) and this left us more time to chase other species.

28 targets located:
Pink-footed Shearwater, Pelagic Cormorant, Eurasian Wigeon, Mountain Quail, Black Oystercatcher, Pacific Golden-Plover, Wandering Tattler, Surfbird, Heermann's, Yellow-footed & Thayer's Gulls; Elegant Tern, Xantus's Murrelet, Band-tailed Pigeon, Spotted Dove, Allen's Hummingbird, Lewis's, Nuttall's & White-headed Woodpeckers; Red-breasted Sapsucker, Wrentit, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Island Scrub-Jay, Pinyon Jay, Yellow-billed Magpie, Lawrence's Goldfinch, Golden-crowned Sparrow and Tricolored Blackbird.

1 target sought and missed: Snowy Plover