Pajareo sin fronteras

It may just be me, but it seems as if the bird bloggers I follow are more productive than usual... hopefully because they're all self-quarantining in their own homes like good members of society. I'm no exception- currently sheltering in Michigan after the situation in Washington DC seemed like it was only going to get worse in the near term, and the middle of the north woods seemed like a safer bet. The weather is colder of course, but I can walk for miles outside without encountering another soul, and take birding breaks since everything in my life is now being carried out online. Of course, the other upside is more time to work on my birding blogs, which is good considering I'm still grievously behind.  I spent my  first two days  in SoCal in the Los Angeles area, exploring various city parks and getting some easy Western US specialties (and some of the harder ones too). The plan for the next days was to head eastwards over the Coast Range to the Salton Sea, where s

My  fall  was fairly quiet birding-wise (mostly because it was very not-quiet work-wise and school-wise), but thankfully I had some travel plans for the winter vacation. A lot of travel plans actually- the original plan was to spend the holidays in the Philippines with Nikki, but delays in buying plane tickets meant that the day after Christmas was the only day it was affordable to fly out. Since my parents were already going to be in Oregon to spend Christmas with my sister, it made sense to head there first, as tickets were essentially the same price. A bit more investigation revealed that it was somehow cheaper to fly to Los Angeles first before heading to Portland, which mushroomed into a plan to spend a few days exploring southern California and its birding spots after the end of my final exams. One thing led to another, really. I flew from DC to Los Angeles the night of December 19 and picked up a rental car at the airport before heading to my AirBnb in the town of Monrovia,