Day 19.259: Nor'easter

There has been much talk about the storm coming in today. Most of it has been to our south, but - as we discovered at Biddeford Pool this afternoon, it is getting the ocean a little riled-up.

Day 19.258: Silicon Valley

One last (I think) photo from my California adventure - the street outside my hotel room with tram and the PayPal HQ. A reminder that although I spent most of my time out in the Monterey Bay countryside, my base was in Silicon Valley. 

Day 19.257: Things with wings

Have you ever seen a dragon fly?

What about a dragonfly?

These are from our Saturday afternoon nature walk:

Black-tipped farmer

Meadowhawk (possibly autumn meadowhawk)

Day 19.256: Bird shaped

I only took a few photos with my camera during our walk on Monday. The light was fading, so it was difficult to make out much detail most of the time. That's not too much of a problem when it comes to recognizing a great blue heron however:

And I had no trouble recognizing this bird just from its silhouette (this is as we saw it):

and here is the same picture with a little camera magic:

Pileated woodpecker

Day 19.255: Evening out

Exile #2, Exile #3 and I went out for a short walk yesterday evening. It was a beautiful evening, but it is starting to feel a little chillier as the sun goes down at this point. Here is the view of the river from the top of the daffodil bank:

And here are two different opinions about the clothing appropriate to the temperature:

Day 19.254: Life bird surprise

Our nature group gathered for a fun but almost bird-free walk at Laurel Hill cemetery on Saturday afternoon. Surprisingly, it resulted in my 13th life-list addition for the week. Here is the unimpressive set of bird photographs:

Eastern phoebe

Gull (likely ring-billed)

Double-crested cormorant 

Chipping sparrow

and then there was this quick fly-by from three ducks. I only took a single photo and at first thought perhaps they were American black ducks but they turned out to be blue-winged teal which, correctly or otherwise, were another addition to my life list. 

Blue-winged teal

A reminder that - even at home - every bird could be a life bird.

Day 19.253: Moss Landing State Beach (visit 2)

As you may have gathered from yesterday's post title, I returned to Moss Landing State Beach before driving back to San Jose at the end of my work duties. Before we get there, here is another life bird I forgot to add to the previous post:

Heermann's gulls

I'm not sure how that happened. Now onto my late afternoon visit:

I heard various birds in the scrubby bushes on the dunes during my first visit, but they were hard to spot in the early morning light. I didn't have much more joy in the afternoon, but a couple of birds made themselves visible - starting with this - I might have taken it for a Carolina wren, but my "every bird could be a life bird" mantra allowed me to first get some decent photos: 

and then identify it as a Bewick's wren.

Brewer's blackbird - another first sighting

Apparently, the often feed on the ground

And a couple of other perching birds - these ones turned out to not be life birds.

House finch

White-crowned sparrow

Bold little fellow

Many of the shorebirds from earlier were looking rather sleepy in the reeds near the water, but there were a few being more active - and easier to photograph in this light.

Long-billed curlew

Western gull

Brown pelicans

Least sandpiper

And then, one last life bird flew in (several of them):

Black-necked stilts

Time to say goodbye to the marbled godwits

Willets and godwits

Willet

And then one more bird - for some reason the first sighting of the year of an American kestrel a couple of miles away as I prepared to head back up to San Jose:

American kestrel

So final life list tally: Mountain View: 3 and Moss Landing: 9 to round out an even dozen.