March 20 -- With Dave and Callie at Overton Wildlife Area

I first gained the acquaintance of Dave and Callie a few years ago, when Dave found out that I too had a Canon 500 f/4 lens, and we all finally met shortly thereafter when they came out to the Palos Verdes Peninsula, just a few miles from my condo in San Pedro, to visit friends. We've been in contact ever since and I've even "threatened" to come visit them at their place in Boulder, Colorado. :o) Dave and Callie are on their annual spring visit to Joshua Tree and southern California, so they decided to stop on by here in SE Nevada. I took them to Carley's for pizza on the night of the 19th, then on the morning of the 20th we met at the Overton Wildlife Management Area for a morning of birding along the dirt roads there. It was fantastic; the first official day of spring, and the birds were "out in force". We ended up with 56 species (Callie got 58; I'll have to ask her about my missing 2) in about 4 hours -- Lucy's Warblers, nesting Great Blue Herons in a rookery tree (at which a Red-tailed Hawk cruised on by, causing all the GBHs there to frantically take flight), ducks, a Hooded Merganser male, the usual, spectacularly ugly Wild Turkeys, a returning Snow Goose hanging with the Canada Geese in the grain field, Ring-billed Gulls, the Avocet flock of about 30 that I'd first spotted a few days earlier -- and a Black-throated Gray Warbler along the leafy track  I'd dubbed "Yellow-rumped Lane" because of all the "Butter Butts" there. Here are photos of some of the highlights --

Black-tailed Gnatcatchers

(Just a) Eurasian Collared-Dove

Great Blue Herons At the "Rookery Tree"

Male Ladder-backed Woodpecker

The resident dark morph Red-tailed Hawk

Northern Rough-winged Swallows taking a breather

American Avocet flock

After a successful and fun morning at the wildlife area,  we went to the Inside Scoop for lunch, which is where I took this photo of Dave and Callie -- 

After lunch we firmed-up plans to meet next Monday at Big Morongo Preserve, then they headed back on the road to Joshua Tree (where they were planning on doing some rock climbing that evening). Callie later posted photos taken during their drive through Las Vegas, including a look at Luxor's pyramid and another of the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile; only in Vegas can you see a fake pyramid followed by a hot dog on wheels! Meanwhile, back at Discovery I got my delivery of "Eternabond" tape from UPS and spent the rest of the afternoon removing the PermaSeal I'd sprayed on the rock guard then cleaning the area with rubbing alcohol in preparation for laying the Eternabond. The tape is super sticky, but the job was a cinch and now I should have no problem with "water intrusion" -- well, at least in THAT area. Just after I'd finished a "Rent-An-RV" pulled into the RV park and I made the acquaintance of 2 men from Denmark, along with children Sebastian and Carolina; they along with the kids' mother were on a quick tour of the Utah parks and were heading to the airport to fly home. So now it's another day, during which I'll do one more hike in the Valley of Fire...