Southern California Trip Summary
Stuart Healy, March 13-18, 2009
Trip Log (journal entries)	Trip Species List	Trip Photo List (links)

This trip was a simulation of a typical target birding excursion that I have done regularly with clients, usually in March or September. Such trips generally require a minimum itinerary of 5 days with single night hotel stays. As is usually the case, the Island Packers trip to Santa Cruz Island governed my planning. Their schedule (only one trip available in the time frame) was such that from a logistics standpoint, I needed to travel south to north rather than the reverse which is my preferred direction for various reasons that I won't cover here.

Over a period of 6 days starting on March 13, I birded at the Salton Sea (on the travel day from Sierra Vista to San Diego) then worked my way up the coast in San Diego and Orange counties. After visiting the San Gabriel Mountains in LA County, I birded my way north (mostly along the coast) in Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. I drove directly home on the final (7th) day without doing any birding. Round trip travel and birding mileage from Sierra Vista was 1960 miles.

In terms of target birds, two factors impacted my results. Firstly, the travel direction didn't coincide with optimum tidal conditions at various locations. I knew this before leaving home and simply accepted that it might only cost more time to find certain species but would not change what I found. This turned out to be the case. Secondly, since this was a "simulation" and not the real thing (i.e. a client trip), I didn't work with the same aggression and intensity or chase any rarities. Friendly soccer games have the same feel.

Generally, the weather was very good with zero rain and above average temperatures. I saw a high of 85 degrees and almost 80 degrees on the coast. The first couple of days were cloudy with the remaining days sunny. Significant afternoon winds were problematical on the last couple of days.

The following is a list of species seen that are typical target species for clients on trips to southern California:

Pacific Loon, Clark's Grebe, Brandt's Cormorant, Pelagic Cormorant, Brant, Mountain Quail, California Quail, Black Oystercatcher, Wandering Tattler, Black Turnstone, Surfbird, Heermann's Gull, California Gull, Glaucous-winged Gull, Western Gull, Yellow-footed Gull, Elegant Tern, Common Murre, Pigeon Guillemot, Band-tailed Pigeon, Spotted Dove, Allen's Hummingbird, Williamson's Sapsucker, Red-breasted Sapsucker, Nuttall's Woodpecker, White-headed Woodpecker, California Thrasher, Wrentit, California Gnatcatcher, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Oak Titmouse, Island Scrub-Jay, Yellow-billed Magpie, California Towhee and Tricolored Blackbird.

By using the links above, you can find day to day details of the trip (in my journal); see the the overall trip list; and view the bird photos that I took from the links in the photo list. Comments and questions welcome.