Birding the Glendale Recharge Ponds (The quest for 250)

On August 5th I took a trip to the Glendale Recharge Ponds with my friends Mr. Joe Ford and Mr. Paul Doucett. My main goal was to find at least one year bird, to finally reach 250, which was my year list last year. When we first arrived we found many Lazuli Buntings in the reeds, we waited a bit to see if the buntings would come closer but they didn't. We then parked at the east parking lot and a young male Costa's Hummingbird greeted us with his bright colors.
                                                              Costa's Hummingbird

We then headed to the ponds and started scanning. The first shorebird we saw (after the Killdeer) was the Long-billed Dowitcher which were now in their beautiful breeding plumage or at least most of them were. You can see the non-breeding bird in the back.
                                                              Long-billed Dowitcher

Along with the dowitchers were a couple of Least Sandpipers.
                                                                       Least Sandpiper

There were also a couple of very entertaining Wilson's Phalaropes swimming around.
                                                              Wilson's Phalarope

As we scanned the ponds I quickly found my FOY Baird's Sandpiper feeding with the peeps. This photo that I am going to show you might not be the best photo but this is my 250th bird for this year, it's time to celebrate!!!!!!
                                                                       Baird's Sandpiper
 
 It was a great relief to finally get 250.  Yes, I knew I was going to beat it sooner or later but the sooner the better. Now every year bird after this bird is just icing-on-the-cake as they say! I spent quite a bit more time observing my 250th bird, but I knew that I must press on and hopefully find another year bird. One of my target birds was the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher X Western Kingbird hybrid, but I came up empty handed. I looked through every kingbird looking for him, without luck here are a few of the birds I came up with while I was on the chase.
                                                               Western Kingbird

                                                        Ash-throated Flycatcher

                                                    Black-tailed Gnatcatcher

                                                        Black-chinned Hummingbird

                                                                      Osprey

We spent a total of four and a half hours birding the ponds, with a total of about 60 species of bird! A new record for Mr. Paul, and I got my 250, we were all happy!
Here are a few Canada Geese to close out this post.
                                                                      Canada Geese