Imperial Beach Birds

Today I took a hike on the beach south from the Imperial Beach Pier.  I think these birds are Marbled Godwits... there were LOTS of them as well as Snowy Plovers.    They run back and fourth in the serf all day long--  looks exhausting.

Check out my bird list at: www.ebird.org

Viejas Mountain Hike

Yesterday I hiked up Viejas Mountain just outside the town of Alpine about 30 miles north east of where I staying in Chula Vista just south of San Diego.

There were LOTS of wild lilacs and other flowers in bloom.  It was a pretty tough rocky trail that went mostly 1600 feet straight up the mountain with great views all around from the top.

San Diego City Hikes - Rose Canyon

Yesterday I took a hike in a San Diego Open Space park called Rose Canyon.  Rose Canyon's namesake, Louis Rose, bought 650 acres in Rose Canyon in 1853.  There he built a ranch, a tannery, planted a vineyard and mined coal and clay deposits.  The California Southern Railroad completed a track through the canyon in 1882.  Landowners in the canyon who came after Louis Rose expanded on the idea of using the canyon for commercial purposes.  The Sawday Ranch was the last ranch in the canyon and the last of it's structures were removed in the 1960's.

The clock is being turned back in Rose Canyon today.  A habitat restoration project that began in 2007 has helped to return the canyon's to it's natural state.

My Langins - Joanne Strange Langin - Overview

This is a PDF document and the links are inactive but it can be accessed by clicking here:
PDF of Joanne's Ancestry.com profile.

San Diego City Hikes - Tecolote Canyon

The city of San Diego has lots of canyons of all sizes and a number of them are used as parks.  A couple of days ago I took a hike at  Tecolote Canyon.

A list of the birds I saw at:
www.ebird.org

Hundreds of years ago, the Kumeyaay Indians found food and shelter in Tecolote Canyon. It has been shown on maps of the area for almost two hundred years and was given the name Tecolote, or owl, for the small raptors who call this canyon home.

One of the first settlers in the canyon was Judge Hyde who built a house and began farming in Tecolote Canyon in 1872. Farming and ranching continued until World War II and as late as 1953, cattle were still grazing the canyon. Startled residents sometimes found mounted cowboys herding stray cows out of the backyards of the canyon's rim-side homes.  Tecolote Canyon was purchased by the City of San Diego in 1978.