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:

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:

Famosa Slough and Mariner's Point

Forster's tern

Today, I did two projects with Audubon.  The first was at Famosa Slough getting ready to do nest monitoring this spring.  I took a few photos of the birds that were there.

Least Sandpiper

Dowitchers

Willet

Blue winged teal

Forster's tern

Then, I went over to Mariner's Point in Mission Bay to help remove some invasive weeds before the least terns come to nest.  The killdeer were already there with their nests.  Here is one of the mothers:

Here is another female on her nest.  I was working about 10-15 feet from her and she stayed on her nest pretty much the whole time.

Here she is with her eggs in the background.

This is her with her mate.  When he visited, they mated, so I definitely know that the one sitting on the nest is the mom.

Here is my view of the work area with all the primrose.

This is North America's smallest butterfly, the pygmy butterfly:

This spot had a good sight of the bay.  Here are two California brown pelicans (and a Forster's tern) flying around the point: