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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Xenospiza" data-source="post: 1390280" data-attributes="member: 23772">Dec 26: My last day in California started in Cattle Call Park on the southside of Brawley. Just a few palms and some mesquite along the New River (which is more polluted than an open sewer), but a good place to find Gila Woodpeckers which were eating the palm fruits. Checking a palm grove on the north side of Brawley led to the conclusion that this was probably no longer there: no American Barn-Owl...I drove back towards the Salton Sea looking for open ploughed fields. Large numbers of Long-billed Curlews and one flock of elusive Greater Canada Geese (moffitti?) flew by. On the corner of Bannister and Pellett Road just northwest of Westmorland I found a good field: it contained 56 (distant) Mountain Plovers, with another 75 dropping in later! A large flock of pale-headed Horned Larks was present on ploughed fields along Pellett Road. I drove on to the Rock Hill Unit of the Salton Sea NWR, where I found that the wind had changed to the northwest: all Black-necked Grebes had disappeared to be replaced by Ruddy Ducks. An adult Thayer’s Gull was on the shore, while one blue phase Ross’s Goose was on the fields. Blue phase Snow Geese are (also) rare at Salton Sea, so checking them is relatively easy.I then drove west into the mountains via Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, with very little birding on the way. I managed to reach Julian when I was getting slightly worried about petrol: it was sold at a premium. I decided to try to do some birding in the Laguna Mountains, and chose to go to Cuyamaca State Park. Unfortunately it was extremely busy with people enjoying the snow and even more unfortunately much of the pine habitat which should have held White-headed Woodpecker had been destroyed by fire. I walked around for a few hours anyway (vaguely hoping for Mountain Quail), but did not find much of interest apart from White-breasted Nuthatch.I drove back in a loop via Mt. Laguna (the east side of the Laguna Mountains) because the road through Julian was completely blocked with people having seen enough snow. In a very snowy landscape (with some rather scary icy patches) habitat looked a lot better, but parking was apparently only allowed if you had a National Forest Pass... and it was getting late anyway. The car made some nasty sounds (probably snow on the brakes?) but luckily did not stop completely...I returned to LA via San Diego, and had some reasonable Chinese fastfood.</blockquote>

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