Once-in-a-Lifetime Shot
A pair of bald eagles was perched in clear view of the road as I drove to work in southern Monterey County, California this week. I parked and grabbed my Canon PowerShot and waited for the moon to align between the trees, using the car as a blind. After about 20 minutes the moon was still high and the eagles had not left, so I got out of the car and crossed the road with my camera on a tripod. I was able to align the moon perfectly. The birds stayed long enough for this 34-second clip before flying off. You can see the moon creeping across the frame. It’s about a 1000 mm zoom through heat waves so it’s not very sharp, but still a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I just wish I had my Nikon D750 with me.
There were some acorn woodpeckers that played around while the eagles sat, and you can hear the eagles call out to each other, too.
After the eagles flew away, an acorn woodpecker spent a lot of time preening on the tree, giving the moon time to crawl across the sky as it set. The time lapse is sped up so you can see the moon’s journey.
Photos and text copyrighted by Cindy McIntyre
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2021 Begins with Birds
I didn’t realize the above photo of the gnatcatcher at Morro Bay would be so popular on the Birding California Facebook page. Last count it had 1200 reactions and 83 comments. It’s reminiscent of the Angry Bluebird that was popular several years ago. This little fluffball was uncharacteristically cooperative, as they are generally in constant motion catching, well, gnats.
Read the rest of this entry »Acorn Woodpeckers and Their Granary Tree
Acorn woodpeckers abound in this part of California, which is known for its oak savannahs. Blue and valley oak are the most common, with valley oak tending to be larger and the blue oaks more likely to grow on hillsides.
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This spring was the first I had noticed some unusual hummingbirds at my yard feeders.
Unlike the mostly iridescent green-backed Anna’s hummers that are year-round residents, these sported a lot of rusty coloration.
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Pronghorn females
I have visited Carrizo Plain National Monument about a dozen times and this is the first time I saw pronghorns. I guess it helped that it was not a people-frenzied super bloom year, as last year was, and it was also in the midst of the Safe-at-Home era of the COVID-19 pandemic, so running across them was more likely.
Two pronghorn does
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I had a few hours over the weekend of Dec. 7-8 and visited the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge complex, starting with the San Joaquin River NWR. Wasn’t able to get close to the noisy flocks of geese to see the Aleutian Cackling Geese, as the roads are off-limits.
So I went to the San Luis NWR – the light was amazing but didn’t get as close to the birds as I had hoped.
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I have seen California Condors, mostly from a distance, though I did see some juveniles close enough to read their wing tags about five years ago at Pinnacles National Monument.
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The black-throated sparrow is my favorite sparrow, and the first place I ever saw one was at Big Bend National Park, Texas. They are also common in Southern California, too.
This one’s bushy “eyebrows” look quote comical.
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One of the great joys of living in California four years ago was discovering the burrowing owls at the Sonny Bono National Wildlife Refuge on the Salton Sea in Southern California’s Imperial Valley.
On my trip to view the wildflower bloom in the desert, I stopped by specifically to look for them. I was not disappointed.
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Last week’s visit to Carrizo Plain National Monument yielded some nice birds as well as a herd of at least 100 Tule elk about a half mile in the distance.
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