Yellow-billed Magpie— Photo: Brad Schram

Scenery alone makes this trip memorable and unique. Highlights include the tallest (Muir Woods), largest (Yosemite National Park), and oldest (White Mountains) trees in the world; myriads of shorebirds on Monterey area and Bodega Bay mudflats; possibly your best ever pelagic trip (Monterey Bay); tufa towers at recovering Mono Lake; and incredible Sierra Nevada forests and mountain ranges, all with specialty birds.

Along the scenic coast near San Francisco we will search for specialties like California Quail, Nuttall's Woodpecker, California Thrasher, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Wrentit, Hutton's Vireo, and California Towhee. In the vast Central Valley, we will look for White-tailed Kite, Burrowing Owl, White-throated Swift, Black-chinned and Anna's hummingbirds, Pacific-slope Flycatcher, Bushtit, Oak Titmouse, Phainopepla, Tricolored Blackbird, Hooded Oriole, Lawrence's Goldfinch, and Yellow-billed Magpie.

Climbing into the Sierra Nevada, we will search for Mountain Quail, Calliope Hummingbird, White-headed Woodpecker, Ash-throated Flycatcher, and MacGillivray's Warbler. At higher elevations we may see Clark's Nutcracker, Mountain Bluebird, and Green-tailed Towhee. After dropping into the Great Basin, Chukar, Juniper Titmouse, and Gray Flycatcher are all possible.

Mono Lake could be covered with thousands of Eared Grebes, Wilson's and Red-necked phalaropes, and California Gulls. In nearby rolling hills and expansive flats, we may encounter Greater Sage-Grouse and Sage Thrashers, while Brewer's Sparrows twitter endlessly from the sage.

From Lee Vining, we will ascend into Yosemite National Park to search for Northern Pygmy-Owl, Great Gray Owl, Sooty Grouse, Black and Vaux's swifts, Williamson's Sapsucker, Black-backed Woodpecker, American Dipper, Hermit and Townsend's warblers, Pine Grosbeak, Cassin's Finch, Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch, and Red Crossbill.

We climax the tour with a Debra Shearwater Monterey Bay pelagic trip at the optimal time for Sooty and Pink-footed shearwaters, Sabine's Gull, Arctic Tern, Cassin's and Rhinoceros auklets, Red Phalarope, and all three jaegers. Other possibilities include Black and Ashy storm-petrels, Buller's Shearwater, and Black-footed Albatross. Time spent along the coastline should yield Surfbird, Wandering Tattler, Black Turnstone, and Marbled Murrelet.

While in the Monterey/Big Sur area, we will search for the recently released California Condors, seen on six of our last seven tours.

A few long travel days; no chiggers but some mosquitoes; some days with options to remain at the hotel during a morning, afternoon, or evening outing; early morning starts; birding along roadsides and relatively short hikes; wide range of temperatures from hot in the Central Valley to chilly in the higher portions of the Sierra Nevada and on the pelagic trip.