On Thursday November 28th we started the day in Blythe and drove to Lake Skinner in Riverside County. I accidentally ran into a posting on the ABA California Inland counties list serve saying that there were still 3 Blue-footed Boobies around. I had dipped on the one remaining bird at Bill Williams three weeks ago,, and had heard that all these birds had now departed the Salton Sea. We changed our route to stop by Lake Skinner and found all four birds sitting on the pontoons at Boat Launch 1 and approachable to just a few feet! This was ABA bird #550 for me. Other highlights at Lake Skinner were Black-crowned Night Herons, Green Herons, Great and Snowy Egrets, Pied-billed, Western and Horned Grebes and a fly over Prairie Falcon.
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| Blue-footed Booby |
We then drove an hour to Torrey Pines, stopping first at the beach area and finding Blue-winged Teal and Red-breasted Mergansers, Willet, Least Sandpipers and a Royal Tern along the river, and Marbled Godwits, Forster's Terns and Heerman's. Western, Ring-billed and California Gulls on the beach. A Clark's Grebe was just offshore. We also had a Red-shouldered Hawk which allowed close approach and allowing for decent pictures!
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| Marbled Godwit |
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| Red-shouldered Hawk |
We then drove up the hill and hiked along the cliff trails for an hour and a half. But as it was Thanksgiving there were many people on the trails, and on the beach below. We saw few small birds, although we heard Wrentits a couple of times, but did see a pod of four Common Porpoise not far from shore.
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