My last post mentioned my desire to get back into terrestial photography in addition to my astrophotography hobby. I’m particularly interested in bird and wildlife photography. I put together a modest kit with a Canon R7 camera body and a few lenses – most useful are the 100-400mm zoom and a 600mm prime lens.
I didn’t go all out on professional level Canon “L” glass – the costs are prohibitive. The consumer-grade Canon lens has advantages and disadvantages. The advantages include, obviously, lower cost. They are also compact and lighter weight. The main disadvantage is the smaller maximum aperture, resulting in slower lens speed – meaning they can’t gather as much light as a faster lens. This is a problem in lower light with fast moving subjects. The “L” lens line generally has better autofocus capability and image stabilization. That’s not to say the consumer-grade line up has “bad” autofocus and image stabilization – it’s pretty amazing in fact.
My first bird photo opportunity came right in our backyard – the fifth hole of the Viewpoint Executive nine-hole golf course. There’s an established breeding colony of non-native Lovebirds here. Donna and I found them in a palm tree.
We had a housesit lined up for September 18th through the 27th in San Diego. I knew there would be many opportunities in San DIego for bird photography, especially shore birds. I started practicing my skills before we went there by visiting the Gilbert Riparian Preserve – it’s about 10 miles away from our place at Viewpoint in Mesa.
The riparian preserve is located in east Gilbert on 110 acres of land. Of the 110 acres, 70 are covered by a series of seven ponds (water recharge basins). It’s mostly wooded with several trails throughout the preserve. Many common shore birds such as egrets and herons as well as waterfowl and osprey can be found there. The woods are home to many other species of birds.
While confirming the identity of some birds, I found a curious fact. Some bird names have changed over the years. I remembered Great-tailed grackles as Boat-tail Grackles. I checked my old copy of Peterson’s Field Guide to Western Birds and sure enough, it’s called a Boat-Tail grackle. My new copy of Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Western North America lists the same bird as a Great-Tailed Grackle.
Note the black bill and yellow feet on the Snowy Egret while the Great Egret has the opposite – yellow bill and black feet.
The homeowner in San Diego asked us to arrive there between 3pm and 4pm. We left Mesa, Arizona at 8am to allow plenty of time to make the 400-mile drive to San Diego. I stopped in Yuma, Arizona to fill our gas tank. Regular unleaded gasoline was $4.14/gallon there. Crossing the Colorado River and entering California, the fuel prices were nearly $2/gallon higher!
We arrived at our destination in the Clairemont neighborhood right at 3pm. After spending an hour or so getting familiar with the home and Sadie, their German Shepard, we found out the homeowner wasn’t leaving for the airport until 8pm. We drove down to Mission Bay and parked outside of the Mission Bay RV Resort to look around and kill some time. We used to spend the fall here when we were full-time RVers. The place has really changed.
All of the old park model homes have been removed. The clubhouse is still there and now the swimming pool is open to RVers staying in the park. The park is no longer secured – walking and biking paths through the RV park are open to the public. I would be very concerned about theft in the RV park nowadays – it was bad enough when it was all gated and patrolled.
Donna and I hiked around the point defining De Anza Cove and I photographed a few birds.
I found a shorebird I didn’t recognize on the south side of the point and shot a few frames.
I uploaded the image into Google Images and it came back with a match to a Reddish Egret. I did a search and found these are fairly rare in southern California – only three or four are reported each year and fewer are documented with photographs. I contacted the San Diego Audobon Society and they asked for photos. I sent them the files. They got back to me and told me I had mis-identified the bird. It wasn’t a Reddish Egret, it was a Little Blue Heron and they were pretty excited about it. Finding one on the west coast north of Mexico is extremely rare and I had it documented! The coloration of the bill positively identified it – I should have caught that.
The next day, we drove up to La Jolla and walked around the La Jolla Cove. I called it a target-rich environment. There are many bird and mammals that are easily accessible there. Pelicans are ubiquitous.
The Children’s Pool area is over-run with sea lions and seals.
I had plenty of opportunities to practice capturing birds in flight.
Later that evening, we returned to La Jolla after taking care of Sadie, to join Donna’s sister, Sheila and Jeff for dinner and had a nice night. Donna walked Sadie two or three times each day while we were there.
The next morning, I drove to the San Diego River estuary along old Sea World Drive. The lighting conditions each morning were challenging. There was a marine layer overcast – while that provided a diffuse light source with minimal shadows, it also limited the brightness. I found a couple of interesting birds along with more egrets. In hindsight, I wish I would have switched to my 600mm lens, but I stuck with the faster 100-400mm zoom.
As I was loading my gear in the car, I spotted a large raptor in the sky headed in my direction. It landed at the top of a pine tree next to the road. I quickly got my camera out of the car and grabbed a few shots. Right away, I thought “Marsh Hawk.”
Once again, Google Images told me I had it wrong. It was identified as a Northern Harrier. I couldn’t find a Marsh Hawk image. After searching further on the internet, I found the Northern Harriers were formerly called Marsh Hawks! Fooled by another name change.
On Friday afternoon, we met up with my high school buddies, Gary Stemple and John Barrientez at the Riverwalk golf course in Mission Valley. I don’t think I mentioned the house where we were house-sitting was located less than a mile away from Clairemont High School and Marston Junior High where I went to school in the early ’70s.
I rode along for the first nine holes, then headed back to attend to Sadie. This was a tough golf course with some long 500 yard+ holes with the San Diego River crossing some fairways. It took them about five hours for 18 holes.
We had a couple of dinners at my old watering hole, Offshore Tavern and Grill where we met up with some of the old crowd and had our favorite dinners of poke and seared ahi. We met up with Mona Sojot one night – it was great to see her again and see how well she’s doing. Donna also met with Sini one night for a walk at Mission Bay and dinner at Offshore.
We played pickleball one afternoon as guests of Sheila and Jeff at the private San Diego Tennis Racquet Club. We played four games and it was enjoyable, although I was a bit rusty. I’ll be giving pickleball lessons over the winter here at Viewpoint again.
We made two more morning hikes to photograph birds. We went to Cabrillo National Monument and drove down to the Point Loma tide pools. I caught a couple of shots of pelicans surfing. That’s what I call it when a pelican glides on the column of air being pushed along as a wave comes ashore. They glide close to the water’s surface for long distances this way.
Our last birding stop was a morning hike through Tecolote Canyon. I found a few interesting subjects to photograph there.
I’m working with new (to me) software to “develop” and process my images. It’s different from astrophotography image processing. I’m mainly using a program called DarkTable which is very powerful, but I’m finding it complicated. My images out of the camera aren’t bad, but as my processing skill improves, I expect better results.
We drove home uneventfully on Wednesday, September 27th. We made our usual stop at Dateland and bought date shakes and Donna picked up a few packages of dates. We hit some traffic as we neared Mesa as the evening rush hour was in full swing.
No dinner plates this time. It looks like we’ve finally beat the heat as the forecast is calling for cooler tempertures with the highs in the 80s and 90s for the week ahead.
