Roadside Picnic Stop — A Quiet Moment Before Leaving Carrizo Plain
Before heading out of Carrizo Plain National Monument, we made one last spontaneous stop for a picnic lunch and a little rest. There isn’t much shade in this vast valley, so when we spotted a small roadside pullout with a few trees, it felt like the perfect place to pause.
The pullout backed up to a fence line, but the view opened out beautifully toward Soda Lake in the distance. The surrounding hills were covered in patches of bright yellow wildflowers with some bursts of orange, creating that classic Carrizo Plain spring landscape.
We dropped the tailgate, opened up our picnic, and just relaxed for a while. It turned into one of those simple moments that ends up being one of your favorites of the day—good food, quiet surroundings, and wide open views.
Naturally, I had brought cookies for our picnic. 😊
Birdwatching Break
While we were sitting there, the area came alive with birds. Carrizo Plain may feel quiet at first, but once you start listening, you realize how active it really is.
I used the Merlin Bird ID app, which can identify birds by their calls in real time. It’s such a fun tool—you simply open the sound feature and it listens, then shows you which birds are singing around you.
Some birds stayed low in the grasses and shrubs, while others perched higher in the trees or on fence posts, calling across the open plain.
Here are many of the birds the app picked up during our picnic:
• California Towhee
• Bushtit
• California Quail
• Lawrence’s Goldfinch
• Western Meadowlark
• Northern Mockingbird
• Mourning Dove
• American Robin
• Dark-eyed Junco
• Yellow-rumped Warbler
• White-crowned Sparrow
• Mallard
• Killdeer
• Black Phoebe
• House Finch
• European Starling
• Loggerhead Shrike
• Song Sparrow
• Lincoln’s Sparrow
• Barn Swallow
• Red-winged Blackbird
• Common Raven
• Lesser Goldfinch
• Northern Flicker
• Spotted Towhee
• Long-billed Curlew
• Nuttall’s Woodpecker
• Greater Roadrunner
• American Goldfinch
• House Sparrow
• Wrentit
It was amazing to realize how many birds were around once we started paying attention. Birdwatching here turned into a really fun part of the day.
A Simple Reminder
Sometimes the best moments on a trip aren’t the big destinations—they’re the unexpected roadside stops, where you slow down, open the tailgate, listen to the birds, and just take in the landscape for a while.
And maybe eat a cookie or two. 🍪
#wildflowers #supeblooms #publiclands
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