I first visited Rockhound State Park in 2007, when I first started traveling. At that time, they were having problems with rain water damaging their roads and campsites. They have 4 or 5 full-time residents here that have worked hard building retaining walls around venerable  campsites.  Now it is hard to get a site. The best sites are reservable and the few remaining ones are taken by people that stay a long time.

Curved-bill thrashers

Cactus wren

Black-throated sparrow

A loggerhead shrike. The first one I’ve seen outside of Texas. Deming, New Mexico is, of course, close to Texas and Mexico. The plants around the campground remind me very much of the Big Bend area of Texas.

A Say’s phoebe flying above a bush to catch insects (top).

A Say’s phoebe and a rock wren (bottom)

Rock wren

Sage thrasher

Prickly pear cactus grow all the way to the top of the mountain that the campground is situated against. Only the cactus in the campground, however, still have “pears” on them. Found that some kind of rodent, think a rock squirrel, ate one next to one of my truck tires. There was a scooped out pear next to the tire with red juice sprayed on it.

Spent some time at Elephant Butte Lake State Park in their desert campground at the north end of the lake. The weather was great, high 70′s during the day, in the 50′s at night. The nights were beautiful, with so many stars visible.

Not a lot of birds near the campground, but large flocks of white pelicans fished in the lake, along with grebes. The fish were really jumping. The campground was not crowded. Most of the people there had come to fish and had boats.

One night saw a blackhawk type of helicopter circling the mountain in the background. It was eerie because you just saw a faint blue glow in the darkness. Knew it was a helicopter from it’s sound and had seen the blackhawk (type) helicopter earlier in the day. Did see a blinking light when it sped away really fast. The next morning a fighter jet circled the mountain once.

When I went to the post office to pick up my mail, saw the above dog in the driver’s seat with the car motor running. Had to get a picture. You just have to imagine the sound of the motor.

Stayed at Black Rock Campground in Yucca Valley for a few days. Not sure when the next time I will be in the area during the prime winter, early spring time frame, so wanted to take advantage of it. This campground has great Verizon evdo coverage. Not sure when I’ve had a faster internet connection.

Ten miles south of the campground is Big Morongo Canyon Preserve. It is on an earthquake fault where a spring comes to the surface for a short distance. It is just beautiful and worth a visit. Their land borders on Joshua Tree National Park and is managed by the BLM. They have a goal of making a large corridor for wildlife, so they are not boxed into a small area surrounded by developed areas.

Talk about developed areas, houses have been built right up to Black Rock Campground. So glad Joshua Tree National Park has their land. Otherwise, you know houses would have been built all the way through the park and up to the hilltops.

An antelope ground squirrel.  Have wanted to get a picture of one of these small squirrels for a long time. This guy had a burrow under a yucca plant next to my campsite.

Black tailed jackrabbit.

Cactus wren

Male and female Gambel’s quail

Scrub jay. Also saw a large flock of pinyon jays. They are the only jay that travels in a flock. Didn’t get a picture. Drats!!

A titmouse, either a juniper or oak titmouse, not sure which.

Noticed that it became very quiet after around 3:00 pm most days. That must be predator time. A coyote walked through my camp one day during this time.

Stayed at Salt Creek Campground on the Salton Sea prior to coming to Joshua Tree National Park. Not many pelicans there yet. There is a 10-15 degree temperature difference between the Salton Sea area and Black Rock Campground at 4,000 feet elevation.

Bear Lake is a 20-mile-long natural lake, half in Idaho and half in Utah. Both states have state parks along it. The first thing you notice about it is it’s color, a Caribbean blue, due to suspended limestone deposits. I stayed 5 days at the Idaho State Park Campground on the east side of the lake. When I arrived mid-day on a Sunday, it was jammed. Within two hours though, it was just me and three or four other campers. It is a popular weekend place for young families and young people. Boating and jet-sking are allowed and you can drive on the beach (4-wheel drive recommended). When I left on Friday, it was starting to rapidly fill up again.

Bear Lake National Wildlife Refuge is located right across from the north end of the lake and was the reason for my visit. Saw a few sandhill cranes in farmland around the refuge, as well as a pair of swans in the marsh along with a fair amount of waterfowl.

Two different red-tailed hawks seen in the area. There are also osprey.

Kestral

Sora

What looks to be an old church in the small village of Ovid.

The Salineño Bird Refuge (aka USFWS Kepler Tract) is some land next to the Rio Grande River a few miles from Falcon Dam and Falcon State Park. It belonged to some birders and was left to the government to be kept as a birding refuge that birders could visit. It is a place you can go to see three different orioles in one place.

Above, a great kiskadee and green jay enjoy some peanut butter.

Altamira oriole

Male hooded oriole (top) and female hooded oriole (lower).

Audubon’s oriole

Ladderbacked woodpecker

Thrasher

Ladderbacked woodpecker

Unfortunately inner Falcon State Park, away from the water, is overrun with mockingbirds that chase away a lot of the other birds. There are flocks of pyrrhuloxia. Have seen some roadrunners and quail, but they are pretty elusive.

Below, view towards Mexico at sunset.

Sunset from the rv park I have been staying at.

Capitol Gorge, a travel route that Mormon settlers used to get to the Fremont Valley area. One wall is called Pioneer Register because it has names of some of the pioneers who passed through the canyon.

Pictographs left by the Fremont Indians.

Stayed at McKinney Falls State Park in Austin, Texas for a week to allow me to get my rv serviced and to stock up at Costco.

Was trying to get a picture of a bird and this kestrel flew down to get it. The bird I had been watching started screeching and I clapped to distract the kestrel, so it left the bird alone. Know that was probably a no-no, but it was my instinct.

After leaving Austin, spent one night at Choke Canyon State Park on the way to the Rio Grande area. There were signs saying don’t feed the wildlife, fine of $500, but these wild turkeys would come up to you when you raised your hand. Someone had to be feeding them.

Moved on to Galveston Island State Park. There were no sites available by the ocean when I arrived, so I took one on the other side of the highway that looks out on a lake and bayous. After the weekend people left on Monday, decided to stay where I was. The wind is a lot less here and there are only a few other campers.

Two birds enjoying the sun at Brazoria Wildlife Refuge.

There are two wildlife refuges around 30 miles from Galveston: Brazoria and San Bernard. Brazoria is huge, with salt and freshwater marshes, sloughs, ponds and costal prairies. It looks like what I picture Louisiana looks like, with lots of water all over the place.

Glossy Ibis. A large group of them were at Brazoria.

A common moorhen.

American kestrel.

Another beautiful tricolored heron.

I saw something colorful moving in the marsh next to the road. Some kind of shellfish.

In San Diego at the Sweetwater Regional Park. Wanted to visit some of the wildlife refuges in the area: Tijuana Slough NWR and The San Diego Bay NWR. Also, Zhen Zhen, the baby panda at the San Diego Zoo is due to go on display at any time. Would love to see her and her mom, Bai Yun.

Had a heck of a time finding Sweetwater County Park. A new toll freeway has been constructed next to it and getting here confused both me and my friend Garmin. Left the elephants around 2:30 p.m. and didn’t think there would be any problem travelling the 30 miles to Sweetwater. Ended up going in circles through multiple high-end housing developments (housing track hell). Garmin directed me to a dirt road that had a sign saying “End of Pavement” “No Trucks”. Had no idea where the road went or what condition it was in. Backed up and turned around so Garmin could recalculate the route, but ended up at another dirt road! All this was complicated by the fact that my gas gauge was on empty, it was rush hour with a lot of traffic on roads with a lot of road work being done, and night was closing in. Changed my priority to finding gas. Garmin came through on this for me, albeit through long, slow traffic jams.

Did finally make it to Sweetwater Park around 6:00 p.m. The dirt roads were being constructed for the housing tracts and did take me to the park. Started raining after I got settled. So I was lucky on that point. The park is nice, even with freeways on two sides and jet planes flying over to land in San Diego. It is set on a hill and there are 15 miles of trails for horses and people. It is also very close to the places I want to visit.

The San Diego Bay National Wildlife Refuge has a bird aviary for birds who cannot survive in the wild. Bald eagle above, hawk with one bad eye below.

Barn owl

They had some cute diving ducks. They would disappear in a flash underwater.

I am in the vacation mecca of Blythe, California to check out Cibola National Wildlife Refuge.

It is amazing how many white trucks similar to mine are both in the park I’m staying at and in Blythe itself. Seems like 95% of the trucks are white. I got a white truck because I was in a hurry to get a tow vehicle and just got a truck that was on display at the dealers.

Sticker shock with diesel gas prices in California. One mile across the river in Arizona at Flying J the price was $3.27; here in Blythe it was $3.79. There was a traffic jam at the Flying J station. Reminded me of gas rationing in the ’70s.

More sandhill cranes! Cibola is doing a lot of the same things Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge is doing…planting crops for the birds and flooding fields. There is also an auto tour route at Cibola.

Another prairie falcon (or American kestral).