Birds and Nature at Morro Strand

With docent Freeman Hall and volunteer Worth Hall  September 6, 2001

Description:  Meet and walk from the State Park parking lot at the west end of Azure Street in north Morro Bay (North end of Cloisters), through the dunes and notice the stabilizing plants. Along the beach observe specialized shorebird and pelagic bird feeding techniques. Binoculars suggested. (Moderate) 1-1.5 mi. 2 hr.

The following are a few photos taken during this outing.  Click a thumbnail below to enlarge.

Our entertaining and highly knowledgeable lead docent was Dr. Freeman Hall, assisted by volunteer Worth Hall.

Freeman Hall freeman-hall-explains-shell.jpg (26229 bytes), one of the most knowledgeable and respected docents gunn-hall-docents.jpg (31597 bytes) in the San Luis Obispo Coast District State Parks Docents group, led a group of ten fascinated participants 10-enthusiastic-people.jpg (25905 bytes) delighted-participant.jpg (14658 bytes) gary.jpg (13230 bytes) on this beautiful sunny day.  Of the many species of plants freeman-hall-seaweed.jpg (27341 bytes), animals, and birds identified all-eyes-interested.jpg (18571 bytes), particular delight was had in examining this Thornback Shark thornback-shark-bottom.jpg (45888 bytes) thornback-shark-top.jpg (48314 bytes), these Heermanns Gulls heermanns-gulls.jpg (19579 bytes), Long-billed Curlews long-billed-curlews-et-al.jpg (9335 bytes), and these Sanderlings sanderlings.jpg (7344 bytes).  A large flock of Royal Terns royal-tern-city.jpg (10563 bytes) royal-tern-overhead.jpg (3686 bytes) royal-terns-in-flight.jpg (6385 bytes) colored the beach and sky.  The finale was the observation of about 35 endangered Snowy Plovers  5b-snowy-plovers.jpg (61524 bytes) 5-snowy-plovers-annotated.JPG (62621 bytes) 6-snowy-plovers-annotated.JPG (25256 bytes).