Leconte's Thrasher and Burrowing Owls

Well it was another red letter day! I left the parking lot of the Holiday Inn Express just outside the Grand Canyon at 4:05 AM and thought I could make it to the leconte's thrasher location in 4 hours. When I pulled up at the thrasher spot at 8:05 AM, I figured I was in the flow today. Sure enough, a large group of birders from Tucson Audubon showed up within 5 minutes, plus a young woman on her own like myself. We joined the big group and within 30 minutes the leconte's was found, and then a second one 10 minutes later. The birds were not close enough to photograph, but everyone got good looks thru the spotting scopes.

I then drove on over to El Centro, a town in the Imperial Valley of California and checked into my motel before spending the last 3 hours of daylight birding the southern end of the Salton Sea. The SS is another one of our country's great birding locations. I was happy to find the pair of burrowing owls pictured above. The bird count for the week increased by 28 bringing the weekly total to 112. 6 of the 28 were new birds for the year, so the YTD total is now 255. Tomorrow I will spend the morning at the Salton Sea looking for whatever is wintering here. Stay tuned!