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At the beginning of April it was reported that a large flock of Surfbirds was to be found on the jetty in front of Hotel del Coronado.
I ventured there one cloudy afternoon and again a few days later, before sunset.
Sure enough, there were about fifty Surfbirds, completely ignoring the many tourists (and a photographer) nearby.
Probing for food:
Squabbling over position on a rock:
A Spotted Sandpiper catches a small fly.
Photographed in La Jolla in early March of this year.
Black Oystercatchers are, of course, mostly black. American Oystercatchers are mostly black with a white belly.
Along the coast of Southern California and northern Baja California are found birds which have black flecking on their otherwise white belly. These may be hybrids, or intergrade birds.
Here is an intergrade bird, surrounded by Black Oystercatchers.
Photographed in La Jolla in January of this year.
Mountain Plovers breed mostly in the plains east of the Rocky Mountains, and winter mostly in northern Mexico.
This one was photographed in the Pinacate Biosphere Reserve near Puerto Peñasco, Mexico, on New Year's Eve, 2015.
This Killdeer placed its nest (just a collection of rocks on bare ground) next to a busy path in the Carlsbad Flower Fields.
A Killdeer with a nest is a nervous bird to begin with, a Killdeer with a nest next to a pathway used by hundreds of people a day... well it was nervous!
Staff apparently had placed small protective shield around the nest.
I took this photo in April, 2004. I didn't realize I had been photographing birds for that long!
A visit to the Anza-Borrego State Park Visitor Center invariably turns up at least a few desert birds species.
These birds were photographed in the hour after sunrise one morning in January of this year:
A White-winged Dove. I often try to include a mountain AND the sky in the background to give a little more context to the image:
Cactus Wren:
Black-tailed Gnatcatcher:
This Northern Mockingbird was perched with nice backlighting. I placed myself such that there would be a dark background (the side of a mountain not yet lit by the morning sun). A backlit subject with a dark background is not common, but is one of my favorite lighting situations. I was pleased with the result.
I enjoy visiting Famosa Slough in San Diego to look for birds. Some days I'll end up with decent photos, other times the birds won't cooperate.
One January morning of this year I took these photos in the hour after sunrise.
A Reddish Egret, not a common San Diego bird, flying off with its breakfast:
Two minutes later this Osprey flew past:
In past years I would frequently see a Belted Kingfisher at Famosa Slough, but not once did I get a decent photo, since they are so skittish.
This one, however, landed on the trestle next to another bird I was photographing. It paused long enough for me to take this photo. I was pretty happy!
This juvenile Black-crowned Night-Heron, like many juvenile humans, has some debris on the tip of its bill.
A Great Blue Heron:
An Allen's Hummingbird, photographed one rainy morning in February of this year, in Del Mar, California.
Eurasian Wigeons are common and widespread in, you guessed it, Eurasia!
Occasionally, however, they get lost and end up on the west coast of North America, especially in winter, where they will mix with flocks of American Wigeons.
Ever since learning this in a waterfowl identification class a number of year ago, I have always looked for them in flocks of American Wigeons. All of my efforts to see one have been in vain.
In February of this year I visited the San Elijo Lagoon one afternoon. I spotted a red-headed duck under the pedestrian bridge near the nature center. Thinking it might be a Redhead or Canvasback, I approached for a closer look. I was thrilled to see that it was a Eurasian Wigeon! Unfortunately the only photo I could obtain was looking down from the bridge. I'm still quite happy how it turned out, and even happier that I saw the bird!
A Costa's Hummingbird, photographed at the Living Desert in Palm Desert, California, in January of this year.
There is a small flower garden at the Living Desert (a zoo), which invariably has a number of hummingbirds visiting the flowers and the water features.
