Christmas bird count

December 24, 2022

The skies are clear this morning. It’s warm, not at all foggy, and looks like a perfect day for the ride out to Point Loma. With our early Christmas Eve dinner in mind we get an early start and are out the door by 9:30. We don’t get far though. Rachael starts up her Garmin and finds that it’s nearly dead. Uncharacteristically, she forgot to charge it last night. We return to our motel room and she plugs it in, and we decide to wait a half hour to see if it will charge enough to be serviceable.

It’s quickly obvious that a half hour won’t do it; and the delay gives us time to discuss again how to spend the day. Rachael decides to take a walk instead, and I help her map out a loop that climbs up to the heights above town for the views and then back down to walk along astonishing La Jolla Cove. Her plan for the Garmin is to give it another hour on the charger before starting her walk, and then to continue charging it with the portable charging device she can carry in the backpack.

Since I’m riding on my own, I rethink my own plan and decide that what I really want to do while I’m here is to bike along the water, keeping my eye out for the birds. I begin by biking north to La Jolla Cove, one of my favorite spots in the country. If you’ve never been here, you should put it on your list. I don’t know of any place quite like it, with its dramatic rocky cliffs battered by huge breakers, the bay brimming with seals and sea lions, the cliffs and sky filled with thousands of birds.

I’m there for an hour, walking along the top of the cliffs pushing the bike through the throng of onlookers, photographers, selfie posers, vendors and artists, stopping constantly to look down and out at one thrilling sight after another. I’m so glad Rachael’s Garmin died and prompted this change in our plans, and can’t believe we nearly left town with only the brief stop I was planning to make on our way out tomorrow morning. Really, it’s the whole reason to come to La Jolla.

Brandt’s cormorants, two of the thousands roosting here right below your feet.

If you get a close enough look it’s hard to mistake a Brandt’s cormorant for any other bird.

Tremendous waves crash against the shoreline.

La Jolla cove is the best place I know of for close-up viewing of brown pelicans.

Even the lowly ground squirrels put on a good show at La Jolla Cove.

You could spend all day here watching these wonderful birds.

It’s nearly noon by the time I finally leave the cove and start biking. I could stay here all day really, but I want to get down to Mission Bay and see what’s out today before we leave. We biked some of this yesterday, but it was gray and foggy then. Conditions really couldn’t be any better today, and of course I’m on my own and can stop anywhere I want without holding up the show.

Looking north from above Hermosa Park again.

One more look at Pacific Beach’s Crystal Pier.

This hawk startled me when I first saw it, standing in the open in a parking lot sipping from a puddle. He flew off into the trees before I could get the camera focused.

On the bridge across the San Diego River.

Ruddy ducks, three of about a hundred sleeping in a raft on the San Diego River.

Part of a long lineup of double-crested cormorants on a sand bar in the river.

It’s just past three when I pull into the parking lot of our motel and prepare to load Roddy into the back of the Raven for tomorrow morning’s drive to Borrego Springs. Rachael arrives in the parking lot less than a minute later, as I anticipated as I’ve been tracking her position on the Garmin. She helps me load the bike and then we head to the room to get ready for our early dinner.

Dinner at La Dolce Vita is excellent, maybe my favorite meal since we started our drive south. Over the meal we trade photos and she recounts her day’s 12+ mile hike, a walk that included an unexpected scramble up and down a steep slope when part of the route I mapped for her is on a controlled access road through a private residential development. It’s like what happened a few days ago on a ride from Paso Robles. Regardless of what else you might think about biking in Great Britain, it can’t be denied that they do an outstanding job of providing public access to lanes, trails and bridleways everywhere you go.

The views from the heights were impressive, but what really impressed her was her walk along La Jolla Cove. On foot, she was free to walk along the footpaths and down on the beach; something I’d do myself the next time we’re in town.

Our excellent Christmas dinner: wild Atlantic salmon, chopped tomatoes, olives, capers, roasted peppers, seasonal vegetables.

Christmas bird count

Like I said, I’m ranker than a rank amateur. A real birder would compile a list three times as long, but I’m pretty happy to have seen around fifty different species of birds over the last few days, just by stopping along the road here and there in the course of a bike ride. For the record, here’s my list for the last few days:

Acorn woodpecker

American avocet

American coot

American crow

American kestrel

American robin

American wigeon

Black-necked stilt

Brandt’s cormorant

Brant

Brown pelican

Bufflehead

California gull

California quail

California scrub jay

Cedar waxwing

Chipping sparrow

Common raven

Double-crested cormorant

Great blue heron

Great egret

Greater scaup

Heermann’s gull

Horned grebe

Lesser scaup

Little blue heron

Mallard

Marbled godwit

Mockingbird

Mountain bluebird

Mourning dove

Northern flicker

Northern pintail

Northern shoveler

Osprey

Pied-billed grebe

Raven

Red-tailed hawk

Rock pigeon

Rough-legged hawk

Ruddy duck

Snowy egret

Spotted sandpiper

Starling

Turkey vulture

Western bluebird

Western grebe

Western gull

Western sandpiper

Whimbrel

White-crowned sparrow

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Ride stats today: 31 miles, 1,200’; for the tour: 299 miles, 14,300’

Today's ride: 31 miles (50 km)
Total: 299 miles (481 km)

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Comment on this entry	Comment	10

Gregory GarceauLa Jolla Cove looks like my kind of place . . . but where's the ice? After all, this is December. Very impressive bird list.
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1 year ago

Suzanne GibsonThat must have been an exciting ride. And quie a bird list, too.
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1 year ago

Suzanne GibsonLove the videos!
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1 year ago

Scott AndersonTo Suzanne GibsonIt was great. Very relaxed and full of interest, a nice change of pace.
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1 year ago

Keith ClassenGreat shots! Merry Christmas guys!
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1 year ago

Scott AndersonTo Keith ClassenHey, you too. And keep warm! We’re in Borrego Springs this afternoon and it’s over 80!
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1 year ago

Scott AndersonTo Gregory GarceauIt could be one of your kind of places, although there are an awful lot of view blockers around if you’re not looking across the water. Sorry no ice, but at least it’s been coolish in the morning and evening. Much more comfortable than here in Borrego Springs, where today’s high was 82.
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1 year ago

Graham FinchDid you use a big lens?... there are some great shots there.
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1 year ago

Scott AndersonTo Graham FinchI use a Panasonic Lumix ZS-60, a small pocketable camera with a 30x zoom. Not really enough for ‘real’ bird photography, but a big lens and tripod is too much baggage to lug around. It helps that the birds at La Jolla Cove are so close up.
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1 year ago

Rachael AndersonTo Suzanne GibsonThanks. This is my kind of place!
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1 year ago