San Elijo Lagoon

Fred and I went out for a picnic lunch at San Elijo Lagoon. From the Nature Center, there's a nice boardwalk out into the lagoon. I saw three white pelicans here last year. This year, the birding was quiet, although we did see an osprey, a white-tailed kite, several great egrets, a great blue heron, a pie-billed grebe, several bufflehead, a Northern Pintail, several green-winged teal, several double-crested cormorants, a northern harrier, american goldfinches and house finches, an Anna's hummingird, and the cinnamon teal and gadwell pictured below. I was particularly pleased to get this good a pic of the teal, as it was most uncooperative, deep in the reeds. I had to manually focus. Both pics with my Canon 10D and 28-300mm zoom lense as I forgot my digiscope attachment.

Pelicans in La Jolla

Pelican Yoga

The Pelican's Eye

Birding LaJolla

Actually this is in Mission Bay; a Spotted Sandpiper was bobbing his tail

Wandering Tattler (one of the best bird names ever), La Jolla

Double Crested Cormorant, La Jolla. Love that turquoise eye!

Crowne Point, Mission Bay

Red breasted Merganser

Eared Grebe

Semi-palmated Plover


all pics digiscoped using Swarovski 65HD, 800mm adapter, Canon 10D

Common Loon

Common Loon, Mission Bay Channel

Digiscoped, Swarovski 65HD, 800mm adaptor, Canon 10D

Digiscoping Class, Bird Fest

Another shot from yesterday's birding class. This is a male Scaup, I believe Lesser.

Digiscoping Class

I took a Digiscoping Class throught the Bird Festival. It began at 9 AM. We boarded a bus and headed out to a few nearby places to bird and do hands on practice and experimenting. Two people from Swarovski Optics led the groupl. It was great. We shot lots of pictures, learned a lot about our cameras and scopes, and saw some neat birds. Here and in the following posts are the best of the day
.
Brants. This was one of the first pictures I took, and I got much better, I think, as the day progressed.

Royal Terns. These guys were hanging out with the Black Skimmers, below. Again, an early picture, but doing better.

Black Skimmers. Getting better.

Red head and female lesser scaup. This was the best of my red head pictures. The depth of field is very narrow with digiscoping, and I was having trouble getting him in focus as he was swimming quite a bit. The pictures in subsequent posts were later and I was getting much better! I especially enjoyed getting the good burrowing owl picture. If you look at earlier posts, you'll see the burrowing owl picture I wwas able to get before!

Digiscoping Class, SD Bird Fest

Surfbird, Mission Bay

Digiscoping Class, San Diego Bird Fest

Eared Grebes

Great Egret


Digiscoped, Swarovski 65HD, 800mm adapter, Canon 10D

Digiscoping Class, San Diego Bird Fest

Burrowing Owl, Mission Bay. These are little owls, about 9 1/2" high, and they nest in underground burrows.

Swarovski 65HD, 800mm adapter, Can 10D

Digiscoping Class, San Diego Bird Fest

Little Blue Heron, San Diego River

Digiscoping Class, SD Bird Fest

Black Skimmer, Mission Bay

Northern Pintail, Mission Bay

Long Billed Curlew

Digiscoping Class, SD Bird Fest

A pair of osprey have a nest on top of a mast of a sailboat that apparently doesn't go out much. One is on the nest, the other was out catching dinner while I was there.

Anna's Hummingbird, Mission Bay, San Diego

Digiscoped, Swavorski 65HD scope, 800mm adapter, Canon 10D

Anna's Hummingbird, getting ready to take off.

Pelagic Birding Trip to Los Coronados Islands, Mexico

Fred and I went on a pelagic birding tour on Saturday to Los Coronados Islands in Mexico. We took a bus to the docks at Harbor Island, where we got on board a boat with about 22 other birders to motor to Los Coronados Islands, about 20-25 miles off the coast of San Diego. On a clear day, you can see the islands from shore. Hopefully I'll get to take a picture of them at some point to prove that. There was a lot of fog on this day, so we didn't get to see them until we were practically there. It was cool, but eventually sunny and the seas were thankfully calm. In addition to the birds pictured here, we saw about twenty more species, including two jaeger species, many black-vented shearwaters, and the ubiquitous gulls and pelicans.

Rhinocerous Auklet

On the way out on our pelagic trip, we saw this Rhinocerous Auklet. They are so named because the males get a horn like extrusion on their beak during breeding season.

Brown Boobies, Los Coronados Islands, Mexico

As expected, Los Coronados had many brown boobies. Here are three brown boobies surrounding a shallow cave with another boobie, presumably female, on a nest.

Brown booby in flight.