It is a long way from the parking at San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge to where the birds are, or that is certainly how it seemed yesterday. I think it was a matter more of tides than anything. When I got there the mud was covered with water. By the time I had walked 3 miles in, the tide had receded enough to show some mud banks and the birds were feeding in the shallow water along the edges. I saw this group of American Avocets when I was already ready to turn around, from a quarter of a mile up the berm between the road and Tolay Creek and walked down to them. Glad I did. 🙂

There is nothing so graceful as a group of Avocets feeding. It is as close to ballet as birds get. The trick is to shoot a lot of random shots of the group and sort for the most graceful when you get home. Or at least that is what works for me.

Sony HX400V at 2400mm equivalent field of view (1200 optical plus 2x Perfect Image zoom). ISO 80 @ 1/500th @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro tablet.

And for the Sunday Thought: I went to three recommended birding spots along the north end of San Francisco Bay and up the Sonoma Valley yesterday, and most of what I did was a long walk with not much happening. Yet, when I got back to the hotel I found that I had taken over 400 exposures. I processed 98 of them, and got a surprising number, and a surprising variety, of satisfying images out of the morning: Birds big and small, wildflowers, dragonflies (and Flame Skimmers at that!), some interesting architecture and artifacts, landscapes, ripe grapes in a vineyard just touched by fall, and the amazing red curly bark of the Madrone trees. Undoubtedly you will see some of them over the next few days 🙂 Such wealth from a morning when it seemed, most to time, like nothing was happening.

Sometimes the wonder is in the words of the song, and sometimes it is in the punctuation. Sometimes it flows over you like a stream, moment to moment, hour after hour…and sometimes it punctuates the flow of time like rocks in a stream give shape and curl and churn to the water to delight the ear and eye. Wonder is wonder either way. Looking back on it, I had a wonderful morning, quite literally filled with wonderful moments, but while it was happening I was, perhaps too caught up in the many steps between those moments, in moving myself from one to the next. It happens.

Only when I got back to the hotel and actually, as they say (not perhaps really meaning it as literally as I do here) counted my blessings as I imported and processed images did I realize how full the morning was. Wonderful.

Something to give thanks for on a Sunday morning!