Buena Vista Aquatic Recreation Area - 2011

Our Lazy Daze Motorhome group met at the Buena Vista Aquatic Recreation Area near Bakersfield, California.  I was able to shoot just a few images while I was there.


We had a very nice sunset.

I found this Robin sitting on a post.

Western Grebe.

Red-breasted Nuthatch just hanging around.

Unidentified bird.

American Goldfinch

Bosque del Apache's Geese

This post is images of a few of the many of thousands of Geese at Bosque del Apache this past January.  By far the most numerous of the geese were the Snow Geese.  We also saw more Canada Geese this visit than we had before.

A few Snow Geese flying over the grain fields.

Looks like the Olympics synchronized flying event!

Lovely symmetry.

Coming at you!

That looks effortless.

It is amazing that they don't crash into each other.

This is a "Blue-Morph" Snow Goose in late afternoon light.

A nice alignment of flying Canada Geese.

One very handsome Canada Goose.

Miscellaneous Images from Bosque del Apache

This post is just a collection of different images from the Refuge.

We often saw flocks of blackbirds feeding in the grain fields along with the cranes and geese.  In flight they were fascinating  to watch, as a flock tended to move like some large, organic blob.  Some of the flocks had large numbers of Red-Winged Blackbirds.

There are a lot of Gambel's Quail in the area.  This well fed one was spotted at the refuge visitor's center.

This Northern Flicker was also spotted near the visitor's center.

This American Goldfinch was feeding on the dried thistles.

We often saw Mule Deer, including this nice buck.

Another one of the local coyotes prowling the refuge.

More from Bosque del Apache

We are back home and I'm trying to get caught up with processing my images.

The official bird counts lists over 50,000 ducks at the refuge.  The cold weather caused them to mass together.  We saw many sights like this one.

We always enjoy a good "goose explosion" when for some reason, the majority of a large group of geese all suddenly launch into flight.

One morning most of the ponds had ice on them. When we first came on this scene, the juvenile bald eagle on the right was sitting by himself at a pile of snow goose feathers. Then the eagle on the left came to investigate. When the third eagle (above) came flying in, the second eagle completely lost his footing on the ice and ended up with his feet in the air.

This little fellow flew across the road in front of our Jeep, but landed in a bush near the road and was very accommodating in letting us take pictures.  I'm pretty sure that this is a Sharp-Shinned Hawk and not a Coopers Hawk.

It seemed like there were a lot more Canada Geese in the Refuge during this visit.

Just one of the many Snow Geese.  This one was caught flying in the late afternoon sunlight.

This Great Blue Heron let us take his portrait.

We often see pheasants in the refuge, but they are wary and hard to get a good shot of.

The California Quail

I intended to primarily post new photography in this blog.  But going through some older images, I found that I had taken a LOT of pictures of California Quail during a stay at Montaña de Oro State Park during the summer of 2009.  Since this is one of our favorite birds, I thought that a selection from these images would be fun.

Palo Alto Baylands Park

We recently spent a few days in Redwood City, California.  Since we were near the south-western edge of the San Francisco Bay, I was able to get a few recommendations for photography in the area.  One afternoon I was able to get in a little time for photography at Palo Alto Baylands Park.

Black-Necked Stilt

Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly

American Avocet

There was a clump of trees that was full of roosting Egrets and Black-Crowned Night Herons.

Black-Crowned Night Heron

Snowy Egret

I think this is a recently hatched Snowy Egret chick.  At this stage of life they are not quite the beautiful bird they become later in life!

More Snowy Egrets