Lesser Scaups

Mike was in Palo Alto and San Francisco this past week. It was sunny in NJ and rainy in CA for a change. Mike is still playing with the Lytro camera. The seagull was nice enough to line up with the scaups on the third photo. However, the DSLR with the 500mm lens still gets more detail. It's nice to be able to refocus afterwards though. Click on the sea gull and then the ducks to see it work.

The DSLR just can't focus on all three ducks at the same time.


Below are some photos of a great blue heron. The first is focusable with the lytro. The second is in focus already.

Great Blue Heron Sticking His Tongue Out

Great Blue Heron

Heron at our dock

 

Here's a photo of our dock. The heron on our boat is the most prominent, but if you look closely, you can see a sandpiper on the floating island. This island is also used by ducks, cormorants, turtles, a night heron and a great blue heron. The jelly feeder hanging in the tree is frequented by catbirds, woodpeckers and even by robins.

Lake Nelson returns, just for a day

 

 

The dam at Lake Nelson has been under repair since the late fall. Instead of the lake, there is a small stream running down the center. We've had a few great blue herons fishing in the stream. On Thursday, there were three at once. With all the rain we got on Saturday, Lake Nelson filled up completly. While having coffee early this morning, Mike saw a small duck, and it turned out to be a female hooded merganser. Now, it's not our best merganser photo, but we are happy to have the lake back, if just for a day, and even happier to have the hooded merganser stop by.

Great Blue Heron on Floating Island

Great Blue Heron on little green lake

We were happy to see the great blue heron fishing from our floating island when we woke up this morning.

Birding on Flip Flop Friday

We relaxed a bit on our dock on National Flip Flop day. Some cedar waxwings were catching bugs over the lake. The mother oriole was looking for food to feed the babies that we can hear but not see high overhead. Some turtles got into the spirit and sunned themselves on the float island.

Two Waxwings


Female Baltimore Oriole

Great Blue Heron flying overhead

Blue Jay in the water feature

Three Turtles relaxing in the sun

San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary

Great Blue Heron

Northern Shoveler

Green-winged Teal

Cinnamon Teal

Black Necked Stilt

Thw San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary managed by the Irvine Ranch Water District has an impressive variety of birds.

Heron on a stick

 

What a little sunlight can do

 

 

 

 

It was nice to have a sunny day for a change. We got a few pictures of the usual suspects: a great blue heron, a cormorant, a turtle and a blue jay. Last year at this time we saw another blue jay "having a bad hair day." We guess it's a normal part of growing up. Just remember this the next time you are having a bad hair day!

 

A boat ride in the sun

Great Blue Heron

 

Cormorant

Turtles

Beaver

We were finally able to get the pedal boat out this morning and we saw some of our favorite creatures enjoying the sunny day. The beaver is smaller than the ones we've been seeing come by our dock. Perhaps he's one of this year's offspring.

Dreaming of Sunshine

 

It's been raining so long that we are starting to dream of sunnier times. Here's an old vacation photo from Belize of a heron that can't read.

Jamaican Shore Birds at Goldeneye

 

Great Blue Heron

White-tailed Tropicbird

Yellow-crowned Night Heron

After 6 days at Geejam, we went to Goldeneye which had fewer trees but more beaches.
There was a reef about 200 feet off shore. A great blue heron would fish there every evening. There was a yellow-crowned night heron perched above our villa the first evening. In the morning white-tailed tropicbirds would soar in the breezes.

Great Blue Heron at Lake Nelson

Great Blue Heron fishing

We've been posting quite a few heron pictures from our trip to California. We really didn't need to leave Lake Nelson and New Jersey at all. This heron and a friend have been frequent visitors since we returned. Here are some pictures of a heron fishing from a neighbor's boat.

One more heron

Great Blue Heron Nests

It all started one day about ten years ago when we were living in Southern California. Chris was coming home from grocery shopping and while stopped at a red light, she saw a heron fly overhead and land in a eucalyptus tree. A few days later, Chris brought Mike back to the area and they saw several heron nests with babies in the trees. On a recent trip back to SoCal, we were pleased to see that herons are still nesting in these trees.

We saw one baby great blue heron in a nest with a protective mother in the top photo. We think the bottom photo shows two juveniles in another nest who are waiting for a parent to return.

Great Blue Heron Fishing

Great Blue Heron

We took our walk early this morning and surprised a great blue heron. He flew off after a few seconds but we were able to get this photo. We're posting this for Lana, who told us she loves herons.

Great Blue Heron

Here is our first photo of the Great Blue Heron. He's at least 3 times the size of the night heron, so we hope to get better pictures some day.