[catption align=”alignnone” width=”2000″]Black Oystercatcher, the Children’s Pool, La Jolla Cove, La Jolla California [/caption]

While watching the Harbor Seals pupping on the outside of the sea wall that protects the Children Pool at La Jolla Cove in La Jolla California, there were two Black Oystercatchers working the rocks above the seals. (This image, or one like it, got posted to Twitter last week when I was playing with the new WordPress extension on my tablet…so if you have seen it, my apologies. Though it is a good enough bird to be worth an extra look 🙂 Sony RX10iv at 600mm. Program mode. 1/320th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.

Scrub Jay, Cabrillo National Monument, Point Loma, San Diego, CA

In January I recounted my encounter with the Florida Scrub Jay, or rather the family or tribe of Florida Scrub Jays on the Scrub Ridge Trail at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. I was amazed at how close they approached…not how close they let us approach…but how close the came to us of their own volition. I was somewhat surprised, from past experience with Western Scrub Jays in New Mexico and elsewhere, to find the the Scrub Jays on Point Loma, around the Visitor Center at Cabrillo National Monument, behaved in much the same way. They have obviously been fed by visitors often enough to lose their fear of human beings. It does make for wonderful photo ops…but maybe not for the best quality of life for the Scrub Jays. Sony RX10iv at 600mm from about 6 feet. Program mode. 1/1000th @ f4.5 @ ISO 100. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos. This is, by the way, only cropped for width…this is the full resolution file. 🙂

Double-creased and Brant’s Cormorants, La Jolla Cove, California

The Double-crested and Brant’s Cormorants are in breeding plumage at La Jolla Cove north of San Diego California…all along the coast of course, but La Jolla is where I can see and photograph them at close range. Not the best light on the cliffs when I visited, but the birds were displaying nicely. This is a Double-crested posturing, apparently for the Brant’s benefit. The Brant’s has that striking blue pouch on the outside. The Double-crested seems to be showing off the equally striking blue lining of its throat. And of course the Brant’s straggly white breeding plumes are no match for the Groucho Marks eyebrows on the Double-crested. 🙂 Sony RX10iv at 600mm. Program mode. 1/250th @ ISO 125 @ f4. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.

Brown Pelican, La Jolla, CA

I go every year to La Jolla Cove to photograph Brown Pelicans and Cormorants in breeding plumage and am never disappointed. Of course there are also the pupping Harbor Seals, the hundreds of Sea Lions littering the rocks, and the gorgeous scenery of the cliffs and sea, so it would take a harder heart than mine to be disappointed in any day at La Jolla. 🙂 Pelicans are such strange birds. I saw several apparently stretching their pouches and finally caught one in the act. Strange. Very strange, is all I can say. Sony RX10iv at 600mm. Program mode. 1/640th @ f4 @ ISO 100. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos and assembled in FrameMagic.

Brown Pelican, The Tide Pools, Cabrillo National Monument, San Diego CA

Every year while at the San Diego Birding Festival in February, I visit Cabrillo National Monument on the high far end of Point Loma overlooking San Diego Bay. On the ocean side, at the foot of the point, there are weathered compressed earth cliffs, and tide pools. I go there for the Pelicans. Pelicans use the uplift from the wind off the sea rising up the cliff face to glide for miles along the point…and the come by the tide pool area, often just above eye-level, for some dramatic flight shots. The light yesterday was variable, not always ideal, but with patience, I managed several sequences of shots. The Pelicans cup the wind with their huge wings and appear to be just hanging in air in a single shot like this, but they are really moving at about 30 miles an hour, and keeping them in frame is part of the challenge. Sony RX10iv at 600mm. Program mode. 1/2000th @ f8 @ ISO 100. Processed in Photoshop Express, Apple Photos, and Polarr.

Harbor Seals, Children’s Pool, La Jolla, California [/caption}

Yesterday, I made my annual pilgrimage to La Jolla Cove and the Children’s Pool to see the Harbor Seals on their pupping grounds (among the many delights of that wonderful stretch of coast). I was surprised and slightly disappointed as I walked down from the north end of Scripps Park to see so few seals on the beach. Children’s Pool Beach is closed from December to May as it is taken over by the local Harbor Seals to give birth and to raise their pups to an age when they are safe on their own. Generally the beach is thick with seals and nursing pups when I visit in late February, but this year there were only a few seals at either end of the beach. There were, however, a lot more people than usual on high arch of sea-wall that protects the beach on the sea side, so I suspected there might be seals on that side, and I was right. The wall overlooks some semi-sheltered rocks, and submerged ledges honey combed with deep pockets, which is, evidently, ideal water for the seals to give birth, and they were busy doing just that…or laying out on their sides waiting to do that. The mother’s on the rocks were huge! They looked ready to pop at any moment, and at least 4 of them had popped that morning. The new pups were frisking around them, with the umbilical cords still hanging. One pup was born just as I got to the wall. I spent the better part of an hour there, watching the new pups play, and waiting for another birth, but birthing time was evidently over by then. The pups and mothers were in the “getting acquainted” stage, with much face-time…nose to nose…sniffing each other’s breath (which is how they identify each other at least for the nursing time). With that many new pups at once, there was, as always, some confusion when a pup would approach the wrong mother, only to get rebuffed after a nose to nose. The pup in the photo is certainly less than an hour old. Sony RX10iv at 600mm. Program mode. 1/250th @ ISO 100 @ f4. -.3EV. Processed in Polarr and TouchRetouch (to remove a bright hotspot where the sun reflected off the wet fur off the mother).

Burrowing Owl, Southern Wildlife Preserve, San Diego California

After a slow time at Famosa Slough yesterday morning, I decided to go look for the Burrowing Owls along the San Diego River Channel in the Southern Wildlife Preserve, in Mission Bay Park. There are a few that have their homes in ground squirrel nests there, if you know where to look. I found them last year, half burred in the ice plant, after failed attempts the two years before. This year the ice plants have died back considerably and I found my owl sitting out on a sizable mound of dirt in front of its burrow. I saw at least one other likely burrow but no owl there. It was raining when I found the owl, and I have lots of pics of it eating a small bird in the increasingly wet rain…before fear for my damp camera and myself drove me back to the car. I could see that it was a passing storm, so I drove up and across Sea World Drive to visit the facilities at the Boat Ramp in Mission Bay Park, and came back when the storm had passed. The owl was still there, now taking its ease and drying off in the sun. It was super cooperative, not afraid of me at all, and allowed me to take a few steps out into the dead ice plant to get this close up at 600mm. You would have to view it at full resolution to see the feather detail, but it is amazing! Sony RX10iv. Program mode. 1/800th @ f4 @ ISO 100. -.3EV. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.

Eastern Bluebird, Kennebunk Maine

Though I am in San Diego this morning, I only got here late last night and have not gotten out for any pics, so here is one from a few weeks ago, on our back deck in a snowstorm. The background of snow makes this look somewhat surreal (or that is what I think). Sony RX10iv at 600mm. Program mode. 1/250th @ ISO 160 @ f4. -.3EV. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.

Black-capped Chickadee, Kennebunk Maine

We put the meal worms out for the Bluebirds, but I don’t begrudge them to the Chickadees, and Nuthatches, and Titmice, especially on cold winter’s day after heavy snow. This Black-capped Chickadee certainly seems to enjoy them. (I am not so forgiving of the two Starlings that have started to haunt the meal worm feeder.) Sony RX10iv at 600mm. Program mode. 1/250th @ f4 @ ISO 200. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.

On our local beach, Kennebunk Maine.

When the temperature got up to 40 degrees yesterday afternoon (after waking to 6 inches of wet snow) Carol and I went to the beach for a walk. She walks the length of the beach, maybe a mile, in the time it takes me to go a few hundred yards, but then I am looking for images. 🙂 Like this clam shell, which evidently served as an anchor for a stand of seaweed until a ruff surf and heavy tide pulled it loose from its other half and cast it ashore, still attached to the weed. I saw it in the pile, and pulled it out to face the sun for this shot. Color and texture are what makes this image compelling (or at least interesting). Sony RX10iv at 600mm and 4 feet for a tele-macro. In-camera HDR. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.