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.