Sunday Morning Birding

This morning I was on the beach at 7:00 A.M., hoping to see the Peregrine Falcon we saw two weeks ago, or at least an Osprey.  Gail had to attend to her immediate family today, so unfortunately couldn't come  along.  You can greatly enlarge each picture by left clicking on it, which I'm sure you'll want to do for some of the bird pictures below.

 Warm air, Santa Ana winds, and water in the 60's had the surfers out in force.

 A Common Merganser was diving for fish close to shore.

 Wouldn't you love to be a Brown Pelican for a day?

After almost two hours of stalking the cliffs, I didn't find the Peregrine or Osprey.  A jogger confirmed, however, that she sees a pair of falcons in the area most mornings, and sometimes gets buzzed by them.

I decided to drive over to San Elijo Lagoon, and hike along the shore trail.

 Immediately, I was presented a pair of Hooded Mergansers, a first for me!

 Nearby was this sweet pair of Gadwalls dabbling for aquatic plants.

 Two striking American Wigeon males looking sharp.

 Another Hooded Merganser with his hammerhead crest raised (mouth open).

 (mouth closed)

 On the left is a male Green-winged Teal.

 A lone Snowy Egret waits patiently.

 A Great Blue Heron came quite close...

 ... and waded into the water.

 Another Green-winged Teal dabbling.

 Two female American Wigeons.

 A group of Northern Pintails were off in the distance.

 From an elevated vantage point I spotted this Northern Flicker in a tree.  Had me thinking hawk until I saw its straight bill.

A White-tailed Kite waits for a small mammal to appear.

There were four deer out in a grassy part of the marsh.  I never would have seen them if not for their white butts.

 A pair of Northern Shovelers doing their thang.

 An Osprey did fly over, but right in front of the sun.

 A closer Northern Pintail.

And lastly, a Clark's Grebe.  Gail and I have handled literally hundreds of these when we did bird rehab, and we both still have our eyeballs!

Well, San Elijo Lagoon is a special sanctuary amid the hustle and bustle of San Diego County.  I'll be back!

January Birds

The weather has been warm, as high as the low eighties on occasion.  There is green grass, plants are budding, and it seems like there might be a more normal spring after 3 years of drought.  I can't wait to see more reptiles emerge, flowers blossom, and the all the spring bird activity yet to come.

 Two days ago, I spotted this greater roadrunner at our local hiking park.  Today, I went back with my good camera, and sure enough, it was in the same area.

 To me, their comical motions are mesmerizing.  They are powerful runners, and hunt lizards and snakes in open areas where they can run them down.

 I haven't seen a roadrunner at the park for a number of months, so was glad to see this one.

 After a pretty good show, it was back into the brush for cover.

 Look out, western fence lizard, the roadrunner is not far away!

 There were also two red-tailed hawks circling around the park today.

 On my return loop, the roadrunner was out running on the road, naturally.

 We have gold finches almost constantly on our thistle seed feeder.

Mourning doves are also  frequently in the yard, usually on the ground.

We are frequently visited, also, by cooper's hawks, who pick off one of "our" birds every now and then. When a hawk nears, all the birds explode into deep hiding, and you don't hear a peep for about 15 minutes. It is amazing how they know the difference between an approaching dove versus a hawk.  I'm often fooled at first glance, but not the finches, sparrows, and others.

Recent visitors have been cedar waxwings.  They are feasting on ficus berries in our neighbors huge ficus tree that overhangs our yard and drops hundreds of berries on our cement each day during the winter.

 A western kingbird high on the neighbor's antenna.

 The cedar waxwings are great at hiding near the tops of tall trees.

And lastly, a new visitor, a song sparrow, I believe.

Gail to the Rescue!

Yesterday, Gail rushed home to drop off a pigeon that she rescued.  It was on the road in busy traffic, and not moving.  Gail leaped from her car, halted multiple lanes of cars, and picked the lucky bird up in a blanket.  At home, it didn't look too hopeful, however, as the bird was jerking like it had a neurological injury, and was acting extremely stressed.  We covered up a carrier in the dark garage and let it rest for the night.

 This morning it looked fine!  Apparently, it had just suffered a concussion from colliding with a car or something.  On Gail's suggestion, I took it over to a rural area to release it.

 It stepped out of the carrier, and a second later exploded into flight.  Yeah!

It circled the area numerous times and then flew out of sight.  Go pigeon!

Peregrine Falcon at the Beach

Last Sunday, we were on the beach at 7:00 A.M. despite rain showers.  We hiked below the cliffs of Leucadia, the next community to our south.

Do you see what I see sitting above the bush in the center of the picture?

 While walking on the beach, we saw a large raptor alight on the cliff with a small bird or animal, which it proceeded to devour.  We were close enough to see that it was definitely a peregrine falcon.  It flew low out and back several times, and sounded its "reek, reek" alarm call.

Of course, I decided not to bring my good camera with telephoto, a sure guarantee of seeing something very cool.  The above cropped photo is with my pocket camera.  When we got home, I did a google search and found the website of a most interesting man, Will Sooter, who lives in Solana Beach, a few miles to the south.  He has been at his post 7 days a week, 4 to 5 months a year, all day for the last 10 years photographing and studying a breeding pair of peregrines that nest on the cliff at Black's Beach, about 15 miles to the south.  He has the most amazing pictures of falcons at their nest.  There are photos of a peregrine attacking a paraglider and a rattlesnake, and all sorts of other fascinating situations.  He has filmed for National Geographic and the film series North America.  Check out the various pages of his site - you won't be disappointed!     Will Sooter's Website

 Natural cliff art.

 As we walked further, we felt we were being watched.

Just before we got to this house at Moonlight Beach, we saw an osprey perched on a stair railing.  It flew out over the ocean and did an osprey dive, but missed its target.

Well, we've got to go back to these cliff areas - early mornings can be awesome!

Pacific Crest Trail

Sunday, we drove east for two hours to the remote area of  Warner Springs.  Nearby, we parked and set out on a leg of the Pacific Crest Trail for a 10 mile hike.

 Near the trail head was a massive live oak that looked like it had exploded.  Notice Gail scale.

 Even though the elevation here is only 3,000 feet, there were a lot of snow patches still left from the cold storm of several days earlier.

 Cactus and snow meet in San Diego County!

 I know, another selfie, but that is snow!

The trail followed Agua Caliente Creek much of the time.  It was exciting to see an actual running stream!

 I fished out our nemesis, a Mylar balloon, from the creek.

 We passed through tranquil mixed groves of sycamore, Coulter pine, willow, live oak, and black oak.

 There was a hollow, but standing dead oak with a hole in its side.  I stuck the camera in and aimed down, and then up, hoping to see if it contained critters.

 There were no critters, but the flash pictures did make for some artsy patterns.

 Gail took this picture of a big snag over our heads where a raptor had devoured a bird, judging by all the feathers on top.  We kept setting off big flocks of band-tailed pigeons as we made our way up the trail.

 There were numerous large manzanita "trees" with their lovely bark.

Scat moment!  Right on the trail was a very large scat composed almost totally of fur.  No doubt in our minds that it was mountain lion.

Eventually we ended up on a ridge and turned back.  It was an amazing day of hiking.  We did not see one other person, the air warmed up to T-shirt temperatures, and yet there were still patches of snow.  We saw a kestrel and a Swainson's hawk as we neared the trail head.  The only downside was the long drive home at twilight on mountain roads with crazy SoCal drivers passing over double lines, tailgating, speeding, and generally driving like immortal A-holes.