Double-crested Cormorants

Plenty of these seen during our week in California, though my favourite encounter came on the final afternoon at Fort Mason. I noticed an adult DCC wrestling with a pretty large fish and so sprinted round the harbour to get the sun behind me. Bird was a little distant and in harsh light for really great images but I'm pretty happy with the results. Thanks to O. Foley for the fish identification - looks to be one of the scorpionfish!

American Robin

I finally managed some reasonable shots of American Robin on our final afternoon. This individual was spotted feeding on manicured lawns in a leafy suburb of San Francisco. Unfortunately the warm sunshine was evaporating the morning dew, creating some pretty intense heat haze and thus the shots aren't as sharp as they might otherwise have been.