Mittry Lake Wildlife Area

This past week we have been staying at the Imperial Dam LTVA area in California/Arizona. We really are almost in both states, it’s kinda weird. Anyway, we stayed here a couple years ago and decided this would be a good interim place to be for a little while, especially since I can have stuff shipped here.

The Colorado river is right down the road, and that whole area is wetland, including the Mittry Lake Wildlife Area. We missed this spot last time we were here, so decided we better go see it this time. Mostly we were wondering what the boondocking was like there. I knew there would be birds, so we went in search of whatever we could find. The Mittry lake is touted as a prime birding area, and an important bird habitat.

But the very coolest thing we found, was a bobcat!! I have never seen a bobcat, and boy has it been on my list. We had taken a small dirt side road, and were driving through the thick tamarisk when Al said, “Bobcat!” and we watched it dash across the dirt road. We stopped the truck, I grabbed my camera and slowly walked to were we saw him. It was thick, and of course, no kitty. I took that moment to lament that it was such a quick sighting, and to go pee in the bushes. When I walked back to the truck Al was taking photos of the bobcat. He had stuck his head back out of the tamarisk, and was watching us.

I was thrilled! Even if this was the only image I got, it was better than nothing. Then, he slowly started crossing the dirt road, watching us all the time.

I love this one, and have added it to my website for purchase.

Talk about make my day!!!

We also saw a fairly good variety of birds. This roadrunner was pretty cooperative, which they rarely are.

There were the usual great snowy egrets. This one was funny on this concrete diversion dam.

And a blue heron posed nicely.

Common Grackle. They really are quite common, but I think they are kinda cool.

It started getting even cloudier by the time we stopped for this western grebe. Which was a bummer because he was fun to watch diving for fish.

This is a lesser egret, and an Ibis. I’ve never seen an Ibis before and I want to try to find them again when the light is better. The photos I saw when trying to identify this bird, shows them fairly colorful.

All in all, it was a great day for photography. On our way back home we stopped at a walking path we had enjoyed last time. We let Torrey run, looked for more birds, and enjoyed the scenery.

Can’t get much better than that.