Boat Trip Event Description:
... A "Half Day Ocean Trip" associated with the
Morro Bay Bird
Festival 2006 was cancelled January 16,2006, due to high seas - so an
impromptu substitution event was created - a wonderful birding cruise on the bay
on the Dos Osos boat, lead by naturalist Marlin Harms.
Photos
are by Mike Baird
- click thumbnails below to enlarge (1-15-06 shots were all taken with a Canon 20D w/ 100-400 IS Canon
lens with polarizing filter; 1-14-06 shots were all taken with a Canon 5D w/ 300 IS 2.8
Canon lens w/ 2X extender).
Note: Shown frequently below are
multiple photos of the same subject. This photo collection is not intended in any way to represent the
totality of the observations made --
I have just included some photos that represented some topics and situations of
interest.
Corrections and clarifications are always appreciated
- please e-mail any comments to mike at mikebaird.com and include "ignorefilters"
somewhere in the subject line.
Sunday, January 15, 2006.
Our leader, local naturalist and expert birder
and photographer Marlin Harms
first pointed out these Bufflehead
,
and then, much more important, the recently sighted
Long-tailed Ducks
towards the north end of the sandspit.
There was discussion as to gender (immature males?) and quantity. Seen here are several
shots of the group we saw, which should allow some conclusions to be come to.
(103 KB)
The above was just added 1-15-06 9:30PM... a slightly more clear and less
compressed image (same photo #7131) (237 KB) of the above three
subjects.
We had a nice view of Morro Rock
.
The Bay was alive with colorful birds.
Mergansers
were fairly plentiful,
as were many Brant Geese
.
We saw two Ospreys.
On the way south toward Shark Inlet, we saw this beauty on a boat mast where he
had been
observed many times earlier this year. He can be seen here eating the head
off a fish
.
On the return trip north, this second specimen
was observed (in view of the first subject)
.
Marlin pointed out that if I couldn't get a good photo from this vantage I
should consider "getting a day job" or something like that.
This Pelagic Cormorant had a nice perch
on some buoys
.
Jack Beigle and Joe and Ann Dickerson
led a kayak-based birding
tour at the same time and place as our motorized tour.
An
alternative way to enjoy the above photos is to
view them as a
slide show at
http://mikebaird.slide.com/
(also here)
Saturday, January 14, 2006. The North Jetty on the
south side of Morro Rock
was a playhouse of crashing waves, around which two magnificent
Morro Bay Morro Rock
Peregrine Falcons
operated.
9-5-06 a
full-resolution (1659x1106)
version of Peregrine Falcon image #1407 above, is posted below (L),
along with a Photoshop CS2 enhanced version (R), in response to a request from
Sweden by
Jan Lindblad jr, Nytorgsgrand 1, 611 38
Nykoping. (jan at janlindbladjr dot com
janlindJanbladjr.com) for use in a calendar for
2007
with photographs for a non government wildlife organisation in Sweden, the
Swedish Society for Nature Conservation,
www.snf.se/english.cfm "The Swedish
Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC) is the biggest nature conservation and
environmental organisation in Sweden with 170 000 members and 274 local branches
across the whole country."
If you look closely, the bird at the highest elevation (below) has some prey in
his talons.
Two Peregrine Falcons observer on the south side. (Presumably two other
Peregrine Falcons were about the north side or thereabouts).
A pair of Brown Pelicans flew west of Morro Rock in this dance.
(This is not a manipulated photo).
Note: 1-19-06 - a better version of this photo is now posted on
http://stealthispicture.com/ to
http://stealthispicture.com/images/brown-pelicans/
Two Black Oystercatchers were forced to scrounge closer inland
than usual because of the wild wave activity...
so they were easy subjects for my camera located at the west side of Morro Rock
about as far as one can walk and still avoid the talus.
Two Black Oystercatchers
(I know, I should have picked the one or two best shots and thrown all the
others away)
Two young men foolishly climbed up about 35 feet over wet
rocks (the waves were crashing wildly this day - about as violently as I
have ever observer in five years) at the extreme far west end of Morro Rock.
As you circle Morro Rock clockwise, the last wall at the water's edge is where
these men ascended the Rock. The images below show their two friends down
below nervously scampering for safety as a massive wave starts to come in...
while the two above found themselves totally engulfed in a giant wave that
landed 10 feet above them. They came perilously close to being dragged
into the ocean and giving the photos below some real market value. They
were laughing and excited on the outside...
I promised to send them these pictures to show to their soon-to-be-proud
parents
(ref. Dane Dky, Azusa Pacific University).
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