California Days 1 and 2: Coots in the Big City
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 ...