San Diego Birding Festival

Today was the free Family Fun Day at the San Diego Birding Festival, so I went down there to take one of the art classes and view some birds in the San Diego River channel.  They had a "Big Sit" down by the bike path.

There was a large flock of California gulls there, but not as large as there was about a week ago.  There's some royal terns, heermann's gulls, and a mew gull in there, too.

Here is a marbled godwit and a least sandpiper.  I didn't even know the sandpipers were there until they flew off.  I'm glad I got one in the photo:

Gulls and royal terns:

A willet.  It looks like his bill is deformed:

Here is a whimbrel:

Compare that photo to a long-billed curlew.  Many people confuse the two unless they're side by side:

Here is a ring-billed gull.  They were grabbing mussels and dropping them on the hard ground to open them. This one was expecting us to feed him.

Bufflehead and northern pintail:

Lots of ruddy ducks:

And, an American wigeon.  We looked for the Eurasian wigeon, but didn't see him.

Lots of herons and egrets there today, too.