We then drove around to the southwest corner of the San Diego Bay National Wildlife Refuge where we again found the American Flamingo. Other birds noted there were American White Pelican, Northern Pintail, Willet, Long-billed Curlew, and Marbled Godwit.
Our next stop was Attu Avenue to confirm that one of the boobies was still on buoy #34. While there, additional birds included Brown Pelican, Western Gull, a Cassin's Kingbird, and the numerous White-crowned Sparrows.
I had reserved a boat at the Loews Coronado Bay Resort's marina for when they opened at 9:00 AM. As planned, Mike and I were joined there by Devich Farbotnik, Holly Merker, and Billy Weber. The five of us boarded the seven-passenger boat and headed across the bay. Along the way, we saw many Surf Scoters.
At the red buoy labeled "34", we got great looks and photos of our 'life' Nazca Booby.
Back at the dock, a Snowy Egret showed off its yellow feet in the shallow water.
We left there with a new 'lifer' and headed for Los Angeles. An Ancient Murrelet had been seen for a few days at Playa del Rey and since both of us had never seen one, we figured we'd give it a try. We parked near Del Rey Lagoon and walked over and all the way out on one of the jetties. There, we had Red-throated Loon, Eared and Western Grebe, Brown Pelican, Double-crested and Brandt's Cormorant, Bufflehead, Red-breasted Merganser, Osprey, Black Turnstone, Surfbird, and Heermann's and Western Gull, but no murrelet.
Unfortunately, the weekend boat traffic through the channel pushed the murrelet out into the ocean and beyond our sight. So, we left there and set our sights on our motel in Tucson, Arizona. We hit a traffic jam on Highway 91 because of an accident, which made the 8-hour trip even longer. Several hours farther down I-10, we finally arrived at our Studio 6 motel around 12:30 AM and set our alarms for "too early".
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