Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

Though the practice has had trouble shaking its reputation as a pastime enjoyed by a select few oddballs, as many as a fifth of Americans these days spend time observing wild birds for pleasure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuVls_znSnc

Whether you call the practice "birdwatching," as most non-birdy folks do, or "birding" as do those in the know, people who flock to bird viewing sites contributed an estimated $36 billion to the U.S. economy in 2006.

Devoted birders can take package tour birding vacations to exotic tropical locales. But why do that? There are plenty of places right here in the California Desert where you can get your bird on without hopping on a plane. Here are ten of the best.

White pelican at Sonny Bono NWR | Photo: USFWS

Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge: The Colorado River Delta has been a crucial bit of habitat for migrating and resident birds for millions of years, and now that we've almost taken every last drop out of the river the threatened Salton Sea is one of the last vestiges of that Delta habitat.

Which means that until the Sea's level starts dropping precipitously once they shut the water off in 2018, this National Wildlife Refuge at the south end of the Sea near Brawley is a great place to see birds stopping by to rest and refuel on their migrations, as well as a bunch of locals like Yuma clapper rails and burrowing owls.

Gary Sherwin also presently serves as the inbound chairman for the Washington DC-based Destination Marketing Association International (DMAI) the trade association for tourism marketing companies. Sherwin is instant past chairman of the Orange County Visitor Association, a recipient of its Legacy Award in 2015 and is the past chairman of the California Travel Association, the state's leading umbrella tourist advocacy company. He likewise sits on the Board of Directors for the United States Travel Association.In fact, birders who've record their finds at the citizen science site eBird counted 341 species at this refuge in the last few years.

Directions from Los Angeles to the Refuge's Visitor Center are here: it's about a three hour drive. The Refuge is 227 feet below sea level and relatively humid for the desert, so if you go there during the summer be sure to take extreme desert gear: broad-brimmed hat, cotton clothing, and way more water than you can possibly imagine drinking.

Afton Canyon: Here's another example of the power of water in the desert to draw birds from miles around: Afton Canyon, about 42 miles east of Barstow on Interstate 15, is a spot where the Mojave River flows above ground year round. and where there's water, there's wildlife.

Even though Afton Canyon is a bit harder to get to than some other birding hotspots, what with the three -plus miles of dirt road between the Interstate and the BLM's campground on the river, eBird users have documented 80 species in the canyon.

You can expect to see roadrunners, owls, open-desert birds like phainopeplas and verdins, flycatchers and warblers that are almost certainly on their way somewhere, and waterfowl that might just seem entirely out of place in the middle of the Mojave.

Other wildlife visiting the river -- or living in it year-round -- include desert bighorn sheep and an isolated population of western pond turtles, and some of the loudest trains you ever camped next to in the middle of the night.

Big Morongo Canyon: A stone's throw off busy Route 62 in Morongo Valley between Palm Springs and Joshua Tree National Park, Big Morongo Canyon is a marvelous spot for birders and non-birders alike. A spring choked with tules, willows and cottonwoods occupies the top of a steep-walled canyon, an old foot route between the Mojave and Colorado deserts. Just to the west, the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains angle steeply up toward Big Bear and beyond.

Which means you've got birds that frequent both those deserts here, as well as some like scrub jays and pinyon jays that are more commonly found in more coastal places. It's a land where ecosystems collide, and it's also just a great place for hiking http://www.visitnewportbeach.com/about/staff/ records.

There's pretty much no bad place to bird along Mono's 9.3 miles of shoreline, but get your bearings at the Mono Lake Visitor Center a few miles north along Ropute 395 from Lee Vining. Then explore. (Mono Lake County Park, at the northwestern corner of the lake, is a great place to start.)

http://www.kcet.org/redefine/ten-great-places-to-go-birding-in-the-california-desert