Morro Bay 2012

We recently spent several days at Morro Bay State Park meeting up with some of of our Lazy Daze Motorhome friends.  I spent some time wandering along the edge of the slough and tidal flat parts of Morro Bay and was able to photograph  several shore birds.

I don't remember seeing Canada Geese in this area before.

Lots of Turkey Vultures around

This curlew was planning on crab for lunch.

Cormorant flying by

Greater Yellow-legs

I like how the reflection highlights the stones under the water.

This little Pie-billed Grebe was having fish for lunch.

A Great Blue Heron works on a nest

We found a few sea otters near Morro Rock in the entrance channel to the harbor.

I believe that this is a Red-shouldered Hawk.

A Snowy Egret waiting for lunch to swim by.

A tern just after catching its lunch

A tern trying to catch its lunch

The bee was a "happy accident".  I didn't even notice it when I was shooting the flower.

This Peregrine Falcon was eating something in a hollow on the side of the cliff at Montana de Oro State Park.

There were three Peregrine Falcons (possibly two males and one female) interacting fairly high up in the sky.  I'm guessing that it was some form of courtship behavior.

Great Egret

"dancing" willet

Wading curlew

Gotta scratch that itch!

White-crowned Sparrow portrait

A first for me, a Brant Goose

Marbled Godwit

A fearless Great Blue Heron

Ojai Raptor Center

The Ojai Raptor Center is an organization that takes in injured birds of prey for rehabilitation and release.  The facility is not normally open to the public, but once or twice a year, it opens its doors for a public open house.  These images were taken there on March 10th, 2012.

American Kestrel

Merlin

Prairie Falcon

Red-tailed Hawk? after being spritzed with water

Golden Eagle

Bald Eagle

Barn Owl

Barred Owl

Great Horned Owl

Taming tough light

Our 15 year old lap lover Max was stretched out enjoying a patch of mid-morning sun.  I knew from experience that photographing this high contrast scene was very difficult.  Since just our little Canon S95 p&s camera was handy, I decided to try something a little different.  I got down to carpet level and composed tightly on his illuminated front side.  I really like how this image came out.

Lake Perris 2012

From January 17th to January 22nd, we attended a gathering of the Lazy Daze Caravan Club at the Lake Perris Recreation Area in Riverside County in Southern California.  I was able to photograph some wildlife near the lake's edge.

There was a pair of Great Blue Herons.

At least one Osprey.

Rabbits

A hummingbird

A Red-Tailed Hawk

While I was trying to get a good shot of the Heron on the nest, I was happily surprised when a Peregrine Falcon landed in the same tree.

Sunsets and Photoshop

On January 2nd we had a very colorful sunset.  I had just enough time to walk to the back yard and snap off a few images.  Unfortunately, this view is marred with power and telephone lines.

The most recent versions of Adobe Photoshop have a feature called "Content Aware Fill".  This capability tries to analyze the content bordering an area to be filled and attempts to fill that area with content that matches the surrounding area.  In some circumstances, this fails completely, but in others works amazingly well.  When used on the above sunset image to erase the power and telephone lines, I believe it worked very well to produce a much better image.