On every trip to San Diego, I attempt to get out to Cabrillo National Monument at least once. It is a beautiful place, with an interesting lighthouse, great tide-pools and sea-side cliffs…and decent birding as well. The California Towhees at Cabrillo are the tamest I have ever seen. On a hot day, there are lizards too! And always the view out over San Diego Harbor and the city, and the sea stretching away to the west…whether it is fog shrouded or clear…whether the sky is solid blue or there are masses of clould.

Yesterday we drove to Cabrillo in heavy rain, and got there between stroms. We had just time to get into the Visitor Center were we waited out the last, and heaviest, rain of the morning. Coming out of the VC we had fresh washed landscape and amazing skies. Great stuff. Cabrillo as I have rarely seen it.

This shot, however is from the tide pool area a little later. One of the attractions of Point Loma is the soaring Pelicans as they ride the up-draft from the sea cliffs. They are, relatively speakng, easy birds-in-flight subjects and I am always tempted to try. As my equipment has developed year to year so has my success rate…Pelicans are pretty easy with the Olympus OM-D E-M10 that I am currently learning to use, even at 600mm equivalent. Good practice!

Camera as above. I got the flight-shot settings I am trying from another Olympus user on a forum…9 spot, continuous focus, 4 frames per second continuous shooting. Still learning, but I am happy with many of my Pelican shots. 600mm equivalent. ISO 200 @ 1/1600th @ f11. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.

And for the Sunday Thought: Birds-in-flight are always a challenge, but, as I say, soaring Pelicans are about as easy as it gets. They are still in the air with locked wings, their flight pattern is predictable, and, at least on the cliff-tops at Cabrillo, they are close. Great practice birds because you have some chance of success on every attempt, and because, given the bird, the results can be spectacular when you do succeed. And really…those are ideal conditions for learning. Swallows can come later 🙂

I have a feeling that in the spirit it is much the same. Kindness, for some of us more than others, is always a challenge. The easy kindnesses are great practice…great practice for the times when real self-sacrifice is called for. The smile (with eye-contact) is maybe the Pelican in flight of the spiritul. You have some chance of success on every attempt, and when you succeed the results can be spectacular. 🙂 It is easy to distain the easy stuff…but if we don’t do the easy stuff whenever we get a chance…we simply will never be ready for the hard stuff when it comes. Smiles and Pelicans today…Swallows and who knows what some day soon.