Monterey Bay Birding Festival - part 2

My husband and I visited the Ventana Wildlife Society on Friday the 24th. This place is located at Andrew Molera State Park in Big Sur. The event was an all-day session where we were to see bird banding demonstrations in the morning and searching for California Condors in the afternoon. I was so fascinated with the bird banding that I failed to get photos of the birds that were caught and banded. It's amazing how small the birds look when they are held in one's hand. Some of the species caught and banded were lesser goldfinches, white crowned sparrows, Lincoln's sparrows, Wilson's warblers, and wrentits. We even hiked to the areas where the mist nets were to see how the birds are carefully taken out of the nets and placed in cloth bags, then taken back to the banding area where the birds would be checked over for molt or worn feathers, weighed and banded, then released. Afterwards, lunch was provided. And then it was time to caravan to several locations south of Big Sur to try to locate the condors. Sad to say, we only saw a brief glimpse of one lone female condor who flew to one of her favorite trees to perch, according to the condor expert. Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos taken on Friday, but it still was lots of fun.
Saturday's activity was a half-day field trip to Natural Bridges State Beach. Our leader was Jennifer Rycenga, who has been a birder for quite some time and has been a leader in the past for the festival. We had the opportunity of hiking on a trail which took us from a wooded area to the beach. But the best location for taking photos was at the beach.

A whimbrel on the rock.

More whimbrels -- they are so photogenic.

Here's a black phoebe perched on the rock. The background seems so out of place for a black phoebe. Well, at least to me it seems out of place.

These dark colored gulls are Heermann's gulls, with a few more whimbrels thrown in.

And on this rock there were mostly cormorants, one brown pelican, and another gull.

And I couldn't resist to get this photo of a cormorant sunning himself.

Monterey Bay Birding Festival 2010

Last weekend was the 6th annual Monterey Bay Birding Festival. Here are some photos I took while on one of the events, Elkhorn Slough Safari. This was done on a 27-foot pontoon boat, and the Captain was Yohn Gideon, owner and operator. The weather was great and my husband and I wish we could have gone for at least another 2 hours.

Sea lions hanging around the pier.

Cormorants - double-crested, pelagic, and Brandt's, hanging around the pier.

Notice the upper center cormorant with his beautiful blue throat-patch - a Brandt's cormorant.

Heermann's gull perched near the pier. He was hanging around with other gulls and cormorants.

A group of sea otters in the slough.

Close-up of some of the sea otters. The otter in the foreground with the whitish face is apparently the "grandfather" of the group. Actually, we were told that the older the otter gets the "whiter" or grayer their faces get.

Close-up of an otter eating a clam.

Harbor seals. Notice they are smaller than the sea lions, and they lack the "ears" that sea lions have.

Close-up view of a few harbor seals.

Brown pelicans along the edge of the shore.

Close-up view of a few brown pelicans.

A white pelican taking a snooze, and a couple of gulls standing guard.

Landscape of the Elkhorn Slough area. Notice the farming area in the background. This is a well-known agricultural area, especially known for artichokes, lettuce, cabbage, etc.

Brown pelicans watching the humans on the boat.

A brown pelican hanging around all those cormorants.

Captain Yohn took everyone's picture, or at least those folks who were sporting a camera. This Safari is highly recommended, and is available for various events/outings. There's also a special Photo Safari scheduled for Oct 23rd on a Saturday afternoon. I sure wouldn't mind going again.

Birding Festival - part 1

My apologies for not posting sooner. This has been a very busy week, plus I am trying to read three books at the same time, keep up with reading my birding magazines, keep up with a daily two-hour podcast (Issues, etc), and finding time to spend with the kittens, much less the other pets in our household. I know, whine, whine, whine. But something's gotta give. I have also been disappointed in the quality of my photos. So I am going to ask that you visit Red's blog; she has better quality photos she has posted.

Our first event on Friday was a full day's trip to various places in the Monterey-Watsonville area. Our first stop was Zmudowski State Beach. And it's obvious this was a place where we should have seen mostly shorebirds, but could also see other birds farther out to sea as well as other birds to be seen and/or heard on the dunes.

When we parked our cars in the lot we had a 1/4-mile walk to get to the beach. Between the parking lot and the beach and all around us was agricultural land. Below is a photo I took of some farm workers out in the field for the day.

[Don't forget to click on the photos to see a larger view.]

Once we arrived at the beach we could look all around us and see quite a variety of birds. Looking back toward the dunes I was watching this great egret while others were looking farther north or south or even west (out toward the ocean).

Looking north one could see the beautiful mountains in the distance and we could see a variety of shorebirds out in the lagoon in the foreground. The birds I could ID out here were mostly double-crested cormorants and gulls (for lack of properly identifying them). There is even a male mallard on the sandbar, too. Other folks chose to walk around the dunes and look for other species. In the distance I could hear a California quail calling from the dunes. Only a few folks in our group got the opportunity to see the quail.

As for sea birds we could have seen Sooty or Pink-footed Shearwaters, or Ashy or Black Storm-Petrels. But anything we saw flying out and about beyond a few hundred yards was quite difficult to identify. Even some of the good birders were finding it difficult to determine what was out there. Meanwhile, closer to us within our eyesight we saw many brown pelicans among the many gulls.
Once everyone felt they saw all they wanted to see at and around the beach the group headed for the next stop, Moon Glow Dairy.

Spending a little time in Monterey

I took the day off from work today. And Red and I made plans to drive to Monterey, about 70 miles from where we live, and about a 1-hour 20 minute drive. We focused on the Fisherman's Wharf area because that was the area where Red had seen Brandt's Cormorants nesting when she took a mini-vacation in early May to see poppies and other wildflowers farther south. I was so impressed with her photos from that trip, and I had never seen a Brandt's Cormorant before. So naturally I wanted to see one and add it to my life list. Now I can. But the pictures I have here are of the brown pelicans we saw today, too. Brandt's Cormorants will be in a subsequent post. Below is a photo of some of the brown pelicans we saw on the path from the parking lot to the Coast Guard station where the nesting cormorants would be found. As you can see from the photo there are boats docked around here, which is part of the Monterey Marina, too.

One of the reasons for taking a day off from work this week is because my husband and son went backpacking in the Sierras for a week. They left last Wednesday and will return tomorrow night. That gave Red and me an opportunity to do something together without the guys. And since we enjoy each other's company and taking photos of flora and fauna we took advantage of her day off. Red always has Mondays off since she works half days on Saturdays.
Monterey and Monterey Bay has so much to offer the tourist. There is much one can do there both indoors and out. But it's the outdoors that attracts so many people to the area. There were quite a few folks all around today. It's amazing how we got photos without people in them. I think a lot of it had to do with this path/trail we were on. It was nice and wide and easy walking. It's also available for bicyclists.

The only downside to our trip today was that the fog or what we call marine layer failed to lift while we were there. But we were still able to get lots of good photos. Be sure to click on the photos to see larger versions.

Monterey Bay Birding Festival - Day 1

September 21, 22, and 23 was the weekend for the Monterey Bay Birding Festival. My husband and I had signed up for one afternoon trip for Friday, and two trips for Saturday. Unfortunately, unforeseen circumstances arose and Dave was still visiting his Dad in Arizona on Friday. So I went alone to do the Elkhorn Slough (Coastal) birding trip. It's only about an hour's drive from where I live. I met another woman who seemed to also be alone for the afternoon birding trip, and she told me she was waiting for her friend. Her friend lives in the Monterey area, and she is from Palo Alto. Both women graciously asked if I would like to tag along with them since carpooling was encouraged. We all had to meet and check in at the registration table located at the Red Roof Inn in Watsonville. But the birding trip was located a few miles down the road, and at various locations, thus the carpooling situation. It was great tagging along with these two ladies since they were certainly more knowledgable than I. And the woman from Monterey also brought along her scope. The weather was mostly cloudy, and a bit windy at times, but no rain. The Bay Area was expecting rain for the weekend, but we did not experience any on Friday while on the trip.

These photos are various spots where we visited which was all considered a part of the Elkhorn Slough, Coastal area. The birds in this photo (above) are mostly brown pelicans. If you enlarge the photo you might be able to see the elegant terns that are mixed in with the pelicans. In the water are a couple of gulls (sorry, can't ID them), and to the right of the gulls are a couple of dark birds - those are common murres.

This was also one of the areas where the kayaking took place. And the photo above is one of the otters we had seen.

Photo above of brown pelicans flying over part of Elkhorn Slough.

And again, a group shot of brown pelicans more or less trying to sun themselves under partly cloudy skies.

The list of birds that we saw and heard as a group:

Mallards

Eared Grebes

Western Grebes

American white pelicans

Brown pelicans

Double-crested cormorants

Great blue herons

Great egrets

Snowy egrets

Turkey vultures

*White-tailed kite

*Black-bellied plovers

*Snowy plovers

Black-necked stilts

*Marbled godwit

*Sanderling

*Red-necked phalarope

Heermann's gull

Ring-billed gull

California gull

*Elegant terns

Common murres

Belted kingfisher

Black phoebe

*Say's phoebe

*Loggerhead shrike

European starlings

Red-winged blackbirds

Brewer's blackbirds

The ones marked with an asterisk are lifers for me. So many birds, so little time. When it comes to gulls and sandpipers I'm glad someone else was there to ID them. I'm gonna have to study these birds on several more trips so I will be able to ID them on my own.

Dad's visit

My husband's dad, 91 years young, came to visit us last week. He flew in from Phoenix - a two-hour flight into San Jose. He arrived Saturday, July 21, and just flew home yesterday (Monday, July 30) These two photos were taken at church Sunday. The first one is during coffee time and the second one was just before bible class began.

This past week we visited our nephew and his wife who live just north of Santa Cruz. We visited them Thursday evening for dinner, and then again Sunday for a picnic. These beautiful flowers were sitting on the table welcoming all who arrived. I think I was told they are Star Gazer Lilies.

While visiting, my daughter and I wanted to go walk down to the beach area. This photo is looking back (east) toward the place where my nephew and his wife live, toward Highway 1. This area north of Santa Cruz is protected from development and will always be zoned as agricultural. The land between the highway and the bay/ocean is all farm land. What you see here is a field of brussel sprouts.


When we got to the beach we could see birds flying out around the water. I not only had my camera with, but also brought my binoculars. The wind was blowing pretty hard and it was a challenge to plant myself firmly in the sand and focus out on the water. I knew there were seagulls flying around, but I could also see dark colored birds. I wanted to know what they were. I finally got a decent glimpse and realized they were all brown pelicans. This was the best I could do for a picture.

On our way back from the beach we saw this bumble bee on a thistle. Photo taken by "Red." Here are other photos taken by Red (my daughter) on our way back to the "farm."

Looking back to the bay/ocean - looking north toward Half Moon Bay.

Looking south toward Monterey. You can see the marine layer (aka fog) between Santa Cruz and Monterey.

And here is another shot looking south toward Santa Cruz and Monterey. We were standing on the dirt road between here and the brussel sprouts.

And here is one more shot of Dad enjoying himself during the picnic.