Heres a quick recap of the events that unfurled on the morning of January 19, 2011: I woke up at 4:30am, was out by 5:00am, and was already foaming mad at 5:30am. That day I had planned to go to four places: The LA River, DeForest Park, Bolsa Chica, and Alondra park. In order to hit these four places in time I would have to follow a very strict bus schedule and have a set amount of time for every place (which is pretty hard when you're out birding unknown places). That morning i skipped breakfast In order to catch my bus on time-the bus was late. I went to grab a donut and when I stepped out the bus was at the stop (across the street). I sprinted across the street and waved my arms, the bus driver saw me but he didn't stop. I was pissed the hell off. By the time the next bus came I was an hour off schedule. About an hour later I was at the LA river.
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| Black-Necked stilts on outside mallards in center. |
After walking down the LA river for about half an hour I was nearly at DeForest Park. My bird list for that day was at 29( nothing too great). I finally got to DeForest park, my plan was to find and photograph a summer tanager and a least flycatcher (reported about two days ago) and be out of there within an hour (It should have been two, thanks alot metro).
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| DeForest Park |
Ten minutes later I found the least flycatcher at the far end of the park without much difficulty, but photographing it was a whole other story. That thing would NOT hold still, It was flying from branch to branch and the closer I tried to get the further It flew away. Ten minutes later I had quit. It took me 20 minutes to make it to where the summer tanager was last seen and he was no where to be found. Half an hour later I was out of the park, no summer tanager, no photograph of the least flycatcher, but I managed to find and photograph a pretty sweet looking robin (kind of odd for the season). My list was at 45 bird species.
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| American Robin |
Two bus transfers later I was at Bolsa Chica Wetlands in Huntington Beach. I had a great time here, I stuck around for three hours before heading back. By then my List was at 94 species, including a few pretty good birds like american bittern, reddish egret, turkey vulture, and long-billed curlew.
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| Great Blue Heron |
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| crappy picture-good bird(reddish egret) |
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| Savannah Sparrow (Beldings Pop) |
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| Northern Pintails (males and females) |
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Turkey Vultures
Even though that was as far as my bird list would go, my trip was far from over. I decided to skip alondra park and head straight home. Only problem was that I took the wrong bus (same bus number different direction) and ended up in the middle of nowhere. Nothing looked familiar here and I knew I was lost. My bus was 8 miles away and I had only 9 dollars on me. I asked everyone I could for directions but it seemed like the street I was looking for didn't exist, and after wandering for half an hour there was nothing but condos, old people, and golf courses. Finally I ran into an elderly lady walking her dog who told me where I could catch my bus, I thanked her. |
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| so cute....I almost died |
I followed her directions carefully and walked for a good half hour, but the street she told me about was no where to be found. On my way there i stumbled onto the coolest little place in the middle of no where. It was called Sim's Pond Biological Reserve. It was like a little nature Oasis in the middle of the city, just walking by I saw blck capped night herons, great blue heron, cinnamon teal, common yellowthroat, green heron, killdeer, and also a red shouldered hawk- not bad for being in the middle of the city.
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| Pretty self explanatory.... |
Well enough about that, ten minutes later I was on the bus heading home. I then transferred on the bus going towards wilmington. About half way through the ride I started to hear the weird rumbling noise. It turns out to be this creepy old guy snoring. It was pretty epic, So I decided to take a picture.
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| Don't ask why I was taking pictures of old men sleeping....... |
Well I eventually made It home In one piece......the last picture worthy thing that happened was a huge stuffed bear scaring the LIVING SHIT out of me....don't ask why, it just did.
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| Pretty disturbing if you ask me...... |
So yeah....thats pretty much an average weekend in the life of Jacob Quesadilla
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