Hi folks,

Just got back from a little over a week in sunny southern California. What
with the major check-in hassles at Sea Tac and the added "security" issues
and armed guardsmen at the airports, we decided to take the train and
actually enjoy the trip. Sitting in the parlor car is a great way to watch
the West Coast pass by, and see some birds as you go. It's hard to see the
'little brown jobs' - so the sparrows, larks, pipits, titmice, etc. are not
easy to identify, except at the 'smoking stops', where they give you a
10-minute break at the several train stations to walk around in the sunshine
and fresh air (just try *that* on a United flight .....).

The train left Seattle about 9am a week ago last Saturday, and picked us up
in Olympia at 11:30. The ride takes you south through Centralia, Kelso,
Vancouver USA & Portland, down the Willamette Valley to Eugene, then over
Willamette Pass into the pine country north of Klamath Falls at about dark.
It being Amtrak, it was running a little behind schedule, so we woke to a
beautiful sunrise over the Sacramento marshes with waterfowl and egrets
settling in for their morning breakfast. The train continues down past the
Sacramento R delta, along San Pablo and San Francisco bays, and through the
garlic fields of Gilroy. We watched the sun set over the ocean just as we
arrived in the coastal sage hills at Pismo Beach and the Vandenburg Air
Base.

Our return trip on Sunday the 24th was somewhat extended, as the train was
delayed starting out of L.A. for 5 hours! We left the Oxnard station, and
only had a little over an hour's light before watching the sun set into the
Pacific just this side of Santa Barbara. Due to a number of delays, the
train was quite late by dawn (if anyone's interested in my attitude toward
our Government's poor funding and prioritizing of the National Rail System,
send me a private email....), we were about 7 hours behind schedule when the
sun came up yesterday; I had pretty good birding from Davis all the way
north through the Sacramento Valley and over the foot of Mount Shasta to the
Oregon/California border, where we watched the alpenglow on the Mountain.
This is usually the section that is run in the dark in the winter, so -
except for the folks who expected the trains to run on time - it was pretty
neat seeing the scenery and birding through that section... even the
non-birders were noticing the egrets, etc.

Birds seen from the train and at station stops:

Double-crested Cormorant
Brandt's Cormorant
Brown Pelican
White Pelican
Common Loon
Pacific Loon
Western Grebe
Horned Grebe
Eared Grebe
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Tundra Swan
Canada Goose
Mallard
Pintail
American Wigeon
Green-winged Teal
Cinnamon Teal
Shoveler
Ring-necked Duck
Greater Scaup
Canvasback
Bufflehead
Common Goldeneye
Ruddy Duck
Surf Scoter
Common Merganser
Red-breasted Merganser
Hooded Merganser
Coot
Killdeer
Dunlin
Least Sandpiper (?- little 'peep' with short bill..)
Greater (?) Yellowlegs
Dowitcher sp.
Willet
Whimbrel
Long-billed Curlew
Marbled Godwit
Avocet
Black-necked Stilt
Glaucous-winged Gull (& hybrids)
Western Gull
Mew Gull
Ring-billed Gull
California Gull
Bonaparte's Gull
Turkey Vulture
Bald Eagle
Cooper's Hawk
Sharp-shinned Hawk
White-tailed/Black-shouldered Kite
Red-tailed Hawk
Red-shouldered Hawk
Rough-legged Hawk
Northern Harrier
Kestrel
California Quail
Red-shafted Flicker
Acorn Woodpecker
Anna's Hummingbird - paced our train car for 200 yards!
Rock Dove
Mourning Dove
Collared Dove
Belted Kingfisher
Black Phoebe
American Crow
Steller's Jay
Scrub Jay
Yellow-billed Magpie
Raven
Violet-green Swallow
Tree Swallow
Rough-legged Swallow
Northern Mockingbird
American Robin
Starling
House Sparrow
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Oregon Junco
Golden-crowned Sparrow
Song Sparrow
House Finch
Lesser Goldfinch
Western Meadowlark
Red-winged Blackbird
Brewer's Blackbird

And, a lot of birds just 'way too far out to identify to species while
travelling at 70mph - probably were tricolored blackbirds mixed in with the
red-wings, flocks of peeps in the rice fields and marshes, sparrows flitting
into the fence-rows along the tracks, couldn't identify Western from Clark's
grebes, etc. (Thank goodness I had part of the week to walk a bit through
the coastal sage & chaparral and take a boat trip to one of the Channel
Islands...) :-)

Also saw black-tailed deer, an otter, ground squirrels, lots of wild
flowers, had conversations with a diversity of people, etc. If Congress
doesn't destroy the Amtrak system with this next round of budget cuts, I'd
recommend this as a 'birding' trip and as a great alternative to the
"nuveaux securite' " air travel.

Jon. Anderson
Olympia, Washington
festuca at olywa.net