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.

South of Monterey

The 20th was the day on which we did the most driving - starting early along Mines Road south of Livermore, we later journeyed south to Monterey via San Jose. Heading for the Big Sur region (to the south of Monterey) as the sun began to drop in the late afternoon, we located a single immature and later a further group of at least ten California Condors soaring high over the coastal ridges towards the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. Here are a couple of adults:

As we pulled over for some dudey landscape photography as the sun sunk towards the horizon of the Pacific out to our west, I located a handful of rather showy Golden-crowned Sparrows scrotting around by the viewpoint. A common bird across Northern California in winter, but we rarely enjoyed such prolonged views during our week. The low sunlight was very warm on the birds hence the exposure might look a bit strange.

And the post wouldn't be complete without a shot of the magnificent Californian coastline...

Lake Del Valle

During the morning of 20th we explored the Mines Road area to the south of Livermore. A couple of hours of the early morning were spent around Lake Del Valle, which proved productive for birdlife. Had my first Bald Eagle (terrible views of a distant adult flying away), but more exciting were Red-breasted Sapsucker, Steller's Jay, White-breasted Nuthatch etc. Not sure the same thing could be said for the horrendous gobbling of Wild Turkeys coming from nearby thicket. Talking of turkeys, this has to be one of the world's ugliest birds?

Rancid.

White goose spectacular

Prior to leaving, we'd all agreed that one of the primary aims of the trip would be to see the large flocks of snow geese that winter around California's central valley. And boy, they didn't disappoint! First taster was a flock of a few thousand Snow Geese seen by route 12, south of Sacramento and east of Rio Vista. There were a few hundred each of Pacific White-fronted and Ross's Geese mixed in as well as a couple of Aleutian Cacklers and a scattering of Sandhill Cranes to complete the scene:

Forcing ourselves away, we continued south towards Merced NWR, taking in a fabulous flock of sixteen Mountain Plovers along the intriguingly-named Sandy Mush Road as well as the odd American Kestrel along the way.

The weather had turned pretty foul by the time we reached Merced, but the Ross's Geese more than made up for it. Many thousands were in fields north of the reserve and, an hour or so before dusk, they all took to the air in a quite amazing spectacle - we estimated 30,000+ Ross's along with several hundred White-fronts and a handful of Snow as well as three-figure numbers of Sandhill Cranes. Add to that the thousands of waterbirds littered across the floods and it made for quite a special few hours, despite the wind and rain.

Over at the nearby San Luis these American White Pelicans also provided a nice distraction from the geese, as did a few Cat C Tule Elk.

Burrowing Owl

Ever since I was a small child I have wanted to see Burrowing Owl. This individual, seen along Robinson Road to the south of Davis was our only bird of the trip. It was quite amusing watching it crouching down in fields to avoid detection - something that worked effectively, as it was pretty difficult to pick up

We also had a flock of 50 Lark Sparrows along the road, along with Prairie Falcon, Tricoloured Blackbirds and Ferruginous Hawks.

Red-winged Blackbird

A displaying male photographed just prior to sunset at Shollenberger Park, Petaluma on February 18th. Sadly didn't have the chance to obtain the desired images of this species.