Ruffless Once Again in LA

I was walking along the Los Angeles river at 6 AM in the fog. Over the next 2 hours I scanned 1.5 miles of the river and saw lots of birds--mallards, dowitchers, peeps, black-necked stilts, american avocets, greater and lesser yellowlegs, western gulls, a black-crowned night-heron, a couple of black-bellied plovers--but not the ruff! I did see 10 new birds for the week including the black phoebe (photo above--click on it to enlarge) on my way back to my truck.

The LA river is a concrete lined waterway which generally has very little water flowing in it. Outside of Los Angelenos, most people only know of the river if they watched the terminator movie where arnold roared up and down the river bed chasing john connors on their respective motorcycles. The water that is in it provides good feeding spots for shorebirds.

I am now in Las Vegas with my wife and 3 other couples. We are going to spend the next 3 nites and 2 days enjoying the shows and restaurants the city has to offer. So the blog for the next few days will be alot about food. The green violetear hummer and the arctic loon reported in Texas and Washington respectively yesterday will probably not be seen by me since they are not likely to stay around long enough while I play in Vegas. There is a new travel map also. Stay tuned!