First walk of Fall 2013 at the San Diego Salt Works

Western sandpipers

Today, I went on the very first walk of the fall 2013 at the San Diego Salt Works.  Once a month, from October to March, San Diego Audubon holds a walk in this restricted area. It's a great chance to see some birds that are difficult to see from the areas regularly open to the public. Most of the walks take place on Saturday, but today they did this one on Sunday.  They are also canceled if there's bad weather.  Though today was foggy, it cleared up enough to see some birds.

So, let's get our sandpipers in a row:

So, like I said, it started out dark and cloudy.  Here is a shot of one of the drying ponds.  That is all salt in there, not snow or ice.

I think one of the most common birds inside the salt works area were western sandpipers.  I got lots of photos of them.

There were a log of cormorants hanging out on this thing until just before I took this photo.  You can see a couple of them flying away.

Also on this building were two turnstones, one ruddy and one black.  They seemed like they were best friends.

After a while, we finally saw the willets and godwits:

Willets flying away:

And, where you see willets, you also see marbled godwits:

I saw a few least sandpipers, too:

And, a few red knots:

Western grebe:

Eared grebe, very common there:

And, a surprise horned grebe.  Note the different shaped head and bill and brighter side and neck/head area:

A few greater yellowlegs were around, too:

There were a good number of long-billed curlews there, too.  Here's one with a couple of dunlin:

Here's a couple of western sandpipers with a couple of dunlins.  Lots of dunlins, too.

The ever-present Belding's savanna sparrow:

Royal tern:

Black-necked stilts:

Stilts with a few avocets:

There was also a surprise stilt family there with chicks that are still fuzzy and have gray necks.  Here is dad with the two chicks:

Here are the two babies:

And, a couple more surprises.  This is a photo of the first cattle egret ever seen at the salt works.  Cattle egrets, though common in many areas in the south, are not common in the San Diego area.

And, there was a short-eared owl, though I couldn't get a photo of him flying around.

And, then the sun came out and made the salt ponds look like glass:

Counting Day!

Today is the day I counted the birds at Lake Murray as I have done every month for the last two or three years.  I don't know how much longer I am going to do my monthly counts, but I plan to do at least the next one for the Great Backyard Bird Count in February.

My day started out with the usual birds, but a big lack of mallards.  One of my first neat birds to see was the eared grebe in the photo above.

I also heard the "Mystery Warbler" (Possibly a Virginia's warbler) call for a few seconds lately.

I checked on all the domestic ducks and all were fine, but Bumblefoot's foot infection is really bad.  It must hurt as he doesn't even want to put her foot under her body.  The rough ground probably doesn't help, either.

Here's a close-up of it.  It really is nasty and she doesn't have a lot longer to live if she doesn't get treatment for it soon.  Otherwise, she is in good spirits and has normal energy and appetite.

The call duck mix seems to be all better now and is no longer tucking his tail in.  I don't think he needs a rescue anymore.

Gaddy and his girlfriend.  You can always tell which gadwall is Gaddy because he's always with this female mallard no matter what.  Sure, he likes to stray off an look at other girls and pick fights with the males, but he always stays close to her.

Oreo has managed to get into Cinnamon's inner circle and seems to almost be her new fifth boyfriend.

But, as she and her other boyfriends leave the area, he stays behind near where his friend died, circling around.  Eventually, he followed Cinnamon, but seemed really hesitant to do so.

Later, I saw him across the lake looking at the 10 Pekins over there. I wonder if he was looking for his friend or for a new friend.

Here are the results of today's count:

3	Canada Goose
10	Gadwall
201	Mallard
37	Mallard (Domestic type)
2	Cinnamon Teal
14	Northern Shoveler
354	Lesser Scaup
2	Bufflehead
23	Ruddy Duck
6	Pied-billed Grebe
2	Eared Grebe
1	Western Grebe
15	Western/Clark's Grebe
56	Double-crested Cormorant
3	American White Pelican
1	Great Blue Heron
1	Snowy Egret
1	Green Heron
10	Turkey Vulture
1	Osprey
1	Cooper's Hawk
1	Red-shouldered Hawk
280	American Coot
24	Ring-billed Gull
27	Western Gull
13	California Gull
1	Glaucous-winged Gull
34	Rock Pigeon
43	Mourning Dove
70	Anna's Hummingbird
5	Nuttall's Woodpecker
3	Black Phoebe
2	Cassin's Kingbird
11	American Crow
2	Common Raven
169	Bushtit
2	Marsh Wren
7	Bewick's Wren
1	Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
3	California Gnatcatcher
1	Ruby-crowned Kinglet
1	Hermit Thrush
20	European Starling
1	Orange-crowned Warbler
1	Virginia's Warbler Vocal only. Same bird heard/seen in previous months mentioned in previous eBird reports. Only gave a short, 15 second call one time before disturbed by nearby human activity. Though it is staying around the same general area as before, it has become almost non-vocal over the last few weeks.
6	Common Yellowthroat
330	Yellow-rumped Warbler Conservative count. Every bird counted was individually sighted and/or heard.
1	Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) Similar to Audubon's warbler, except with a white throat.
6	California Towhee
63	Song Sparrow
83	White-crowned Sparrow
30	Red-winged Blackbird
63	Brewer's Blackbird
40	Great-tailed Grackle
134	House Finch
79	Lesser Goldfinch

Showery day

Today is kinda partly cloudy and even showery.  I didn't take many pictures, but here's a few that I took this morning at Lake Murray.

I've been trying to get a photo of the common yellowthroats for a long time, but they hide in the reeds whenever they see me looking at them.  This is probably the best shot I had at one so far:

Close-up of a coot:

A gadwall family!  I accidentally flushed them out.  I wonder if two of them are the two ducklings from earlier this year:

Pretty duck:

Eared grebe.  I saw three together this morning: