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.

Golden Gate Park

Our final morning in California was spent in Golden Gate Park. We were a bit lazy when it came to searching for passerines and, being a Saturday morning, the area soon became quite busy. Nevertheless we were thoroughly impressed by how showy some of the wildfowl was. Many failed the bread test, like this drake American Wigeon:

The morning light and reflections on the lake also made for some fun Ring-necked Duck photography:

This Pied-billed Grebe briefly came quite close and was one of several seen:

One of the only passerines to perform for the camera was this male Anna's Hummingbird. It's really difficult to try and catch the light on the iridescent throat and forehead; all my photos showing the purple sheen came out soft.

As always, click for larger versions!

Showy Scoters

Prior to heading to California, my previous experience of Surf Scoter had been limited to a number of distant (to very distant!) blobs bobbing around off various parts of the British and Irish coastline. Not the case with these boys and girls at Moss Landing, which regularly showed to within 30 metres or so. Watching these birds courting, feeding and generally lazing around against the blue seas in warm sunshine was on of the highlights of the trip for me. Drakes are surely strong contenders for the best-looking of all ducks, aren't they?

Heermann's Gulls

A few friendly Heermann's Gulls were seen around Monterey harbour either side of our whale watching trip. Though we failed to see a full adult bird during the week, these immature birds (of varying ages) were still pretty nice. The final photo above was taken with my 10-22mm lens at a range of about two metres, illustrating just how tame they were.

Sea Lions

It's a tough old life being a California Sea Lion in Monterey, as the above images demonstrate. They're pretty characterful beasts but don't half stink (and the pelicans aren't much better). Think tons of rotten fish...

Gray Whales in Monterey Bay

Winter whale-watching trips out of Monterey are synonymous with the Gray Whale. Our boat trip connected with a group of three individuals in the bay and, unfortunately for us, the boat then simply chased the same three whales about four two-and-a-half hours rather than go and look for more! We did score three Ancient Murrelets and, in the final photo you can see a couple of Guillemots (sorry, Murres) and a Rhinoceros Auklet zooming past the whale's fluke.

Laguna Grande Park, Monterey

We found out about this site largely thanks to a wintering American Dipper, which showed astonishingly well during the evening of 21st (although in poor light) but had disappeared on 22nd. The low light meant shutter speed was slow and thus my shots are nowhere near as good as I might have hoped.

We also chanced upon a wintering Palm Warbler here, which showed well on both our visits. Surprisingly waterthrush-like in behaviour and appearance, and a good one to see in the flesh with future Corvo visits in mind!

Other common birds included Pine Siskins, American and Lesser Goldfinches, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, abundant Yellow-rumped Warblers plus this Downy Woodpecker:

...and plenty of House Finches including this smart male:

Townsend's Warbler

Before the trip, one of my personal targets was to see Townsend's Warblers and hopefully obtain some decent shots of them. The vast majority of Townsend's seen proved distant, difficult to photograph, in poor condition or a combination of all three. Fortunately this individual in Laguna Grande Park posed long enough for me to fire off a few photos as it sat in a flowering shrub a few yards away, although I still left California lacking the shots that I'd hoped for.

Harlequin on North Uist

Taking a break from California photos for now. This weekend I headed up to North Uist with James Hunter and Kit Day with the primary objective of seeing the young drake Harlequin Duck that has been residing off Balranald for ten days or so. In short, we saw the bird pretty well (to 40 metres) although it was never close enough for great images with my 400mm lens.

A great supporting cast on the North Uist included my first Richardson's Canada Goose as well as Green-winged Teal, Ring-necked Duck, and Golden and White-tailed Eagles as well as juveniles of Kumlien's, Iceland and Glaucous Gull. We also had a couple of Otters while it was great to take in the island's wonderful scenery again.

Sunday morning was spent around Aviemore where we saw a few Crested Tits, Black Grouse and a handful of Red Squirrels. Great weekend out, and great value for money. Thanks to James for driving.