Curlews and other birds at Famosa Slough

The migrating shorebirds and ducks are coming in.  I saw this long-billed curlew there:

He was very itchy:

This willet was itchy, too:

Quite a few stilts, including a couple juveniles.  Perhaps the juveniles are from the nest I observed a month or so ago:

Marbled godwit:

Short-billed dowitchers, looks like two juveniles in this photo:

More dowitchers:

Least sandpipers:

Northern shovelers, blue-winged teal and stilts:

And, a whimbrel:

Allen's and Costa Hummingbirds (and ducks)

Allen's hummingbird

It's very unusual to see any kind of hummingbird other than Anna's in San Diego.  We are said to have the most Anna's hummingbirds in the entire United States.  But, today, several Allen's hummingbirds, males and females, were seen.  I had a hard time getting good photos of them.  I think I also saw one Rufous hummingbird as well.

The next photo is blurry, but you can definitely tell that it is a male Allen's hummingbird:

Here is a female Costa's hummingbird which is more common in this area, but still fairly rare.

Also seen today was about 20 or more California quail, mostly females and juveniles:

They quickly ran/flew and hid from me:

I saw Pepper today, but he was acting strange.  I think he had a feather stuck to his bill and it was annoying him:

And, Zippy, Skippy, and Yellowcheeks were all seen.  The ducklings are now 6 weeks old.  Zippy seems a little tired.

Fish Food Mama and Peaches were hanging out together this morning and I found Bigboi in the same area.

And, the three "boys", Pollux, his son and his baby brother had moved to another ballfield.  Here is a couple of photos of what I think might be Pollux's son, but he also looks a lot like Peanut, except the head shape is different.

I think I heard Killer Jr. and his family moving closer to the ballfield where Pollux used to be.  It's possible that is why they moved to this area, to keep their distance from the other family.

Kumeyaay Lake

Kumeyaay Lake is part of the Mission Trails Regional Park and is at the most northeastern part of the park near Santee.  They used to allow overnight camping there, but because of budget cuts, there is only day use allowed.

I learned a few new birds while out on this walk.  However, whenever I go out birding with a large group of people, it is hard for me to get close enough to the birds to get good photos.  I only use an 8MP camera, too, so many of my photos look distant.

First, here is a very distant ruddy duck at the Kumeyaay Lake.  I took a photo of it because it looked so pretty with it's red colors:

This ash-throated flycatcher was seen many times.  We also saw a pacific slope flycatcher, too:

I spotted this black-chinned hummingbird:

And, lots and lots of swallows.  Here's a tree swallow on a branch taken while it was very cloudy out.  Also seen were cliff and northern rough-winged swallows:

A day at the San Diego Salt Works.

Once a month, docents from the San Diego Audubon Society lead a tour of the San Diego Salt Works area that is usually closed off to the public.

When we arrived, we were greeted by killdeer, but I couldn't get any photos of them because people ahead of me caused them to move too far away.  But, we did find a whole bunch of gulls and grebes at first.  Also, there was a peregrine and the remains of many, many dead birds, mostly eared grebes, but also a cormorant, gulls, a few ducks, and a black-necked stilt.  There were also coon and dog prints around.

One of the first friendly birds we saw was an least sandpiper.  Later, though, we saw several dozen flying around.  Only a few western sandpipers were present.

Also, hundreds of Belding's savanna sparrows:

And, there was an American pipit there, too:

And, we saw some Clark's and western grebes:

This willet was very curious:

There was an Eurasian wigeon among the brant, but I don't think I got a photo of him.  

Also, a rare winter Caspian tern among the juvenile gulls:

Our guide said this was a glaucous-wing crossed with a western gull, juvenile:

We saw several royal terns and a few Forster's terns, too:

A friendly female northern shoveler who seemed to expect us to give her food:

Black-necked stilt:

Marbled godwit:

Here are more shots of the salt ponds:

Other birds seen include lots and lots of eared grebes, a horned grebe, kestrel, osprey, brant, dunlin, ruddy and black turnstones, blue-winged teal, northern pintail and American avocets.

Christmas Bird Count Training

Killdeer

Yesterday, I went to the Christmas Bird Count training at Rohr Park in Bonita.  The actual Christmas Bird Count for San Diego will be next weekend.  So, I was able to brush up on my small birds as there's a lot of small birds there.  However, many of these birds were too fast for my camera, hence the less than perfect focus to blurriness on some of the photos.

Cedar Waxwings

Orange-crowned warbler

 This next bird, the Painted Redstart, is actually far from it's normal range.  They have a summer range of central/southern Arizona and usually live in Mexico.

There also was a northern parula, but it was way too fast for even a blurry photo.

Below, are some sleepy killdeer, sleeping in the horse corral.  These are the same killdeer I see at the church, which is across the street:

Townsend's warbler

Western Bluebird

We also saw a kestrel, merlin, red-shouldered hawk, red-tailed hawk, Cooper's hawk, sparrows, finches of all kinds and a palm warbler.