Christian managed to make it to Spring Break, but just barely. He was sick, yet again from some illness he got from the kids, or maybe it is just all the stress from his job. In addition, another heat wave was coming in just in time for the break. One of the things we were planning to do was to go out to the edge of the desert to see if we can catch the fighter jets out practicing, but it was going to be way too hot to attempt that.
We made a few day trips out to semi-local areas. Our first outting once Christian started to feel better was out to the San Jacinto Wildlife Preserve.
San Jacinto rarely disappoints. We still managed to get six new lifers including the American Avocet, a Marsh Wren, a Great-Tailed Grackle, the Tri-colored blackbird, American Bittern and a Ring-necked Pheasant.
We even saw some F-16s flying from March Air Force Base. They were a bit far and the heat haze was pretty bad by then, but we did want to see fighter jets...
I don't think we had planned to stay too long since it has been so hot lately. You would think that it is Summer instead of Spring! We wet out early to catch the beautiful morning light and to avoid some of the heat but we probably stayed longer than we should have because there is so much we wanted to see. Unfortunately, we also saw one of the biggest rattlesnakes I've ever encountered just a few feet away from where I was standing at one point. There has been a LOT of rattlesnake sightings this year, with quite a few bites and even a few deaths. This point us on edge for the rest of the afternoon. We were very careful of where we were walking afterwards.
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The next day, we went out to Big Morongo Canyon to join the bird walk again. We got there a little early and walked around a bit before the bird walk and ran into a fellow photographer taking pictures of a new owl family.
Mom and Dad were napping in a nearby tree. The owlets were awake on and off. We took a ton of pictures and video. We were a little reluctant to leave to meet up with the birders. Luckily we saw them assembling and they headed over to the owls as one of their first stops so we joined up with them there.
The group was quite large so it was good that they kind of broke up the group. Most of the birders are satisfied with just getting a glimpse of the birds and will even count them if they can hear and identify the birds by their song. Trying to get a photograph is much more difficult and time consuming so we lagged behind now and then but tried to keep with the group as much as possible. Some of them are very knowledgeable and have very keen sight.
The walk always ends at the nature center where they have a bunch of feeding stations and seats set up. While we prefer to capture the birds in a more natural habitat, it's still nice watching the birds there and seeing what other birds we may have missed.
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It is also nice to sit down and just watch their shenanigans there as they jockey for position or take a bird bath at one of the watering stations. I saw an intrepid squirrel position himself on a tree branch close by so that he can make a leap for one of the hanging bird feeders. There were actually a few too many squirrels nearby scavenging many of the fallen seeds but the one that made it into one of the feeders sat and stuffed himself before escaping with all he could carry in his pounches.
We managed to collect another six lifers: the Hooded Oriole, Scott's Oriole, the Western Kingbird, Lawrence's Goldfinch, Bell's Vireo and a Swainson's Hawk. There was also a Barn Owl heard in the area not far from the Great Horned Owl family but we were not able to locate it.
Our last outting was back to the Bolsa Chica Ecological Preserve. We decided to head into the main entrance since we haven't been to that side of the Preserve yet and there were a few parking spots available when we arrived.
There was actually so much going on that we did not make very much progress into the Preserve for quite some time. We spent a lot of time trying to capture the Barn Swallows but they fly so quickly and erratically that it is really a challenge. There is a definite limitation of my extra long lens, which is that it is just not fast enough to be able to capture things like that. Christian's lens does not quite have the reach of mine but his is a lot faster. The other really exciting subject we came upon was the sea turtles. They would come up for air very briefly but once they go back down, you cannot see where they are and where they will come up next. When we finally pulled away from the swallows and turtles, we got distracted by the Elegant Terns feeding.
The trails actually go farther than you think they do and there are a few branches that we still have not explored but we finally made it to the other side where we normally visit. Of course, we then got excited and distracted watching an Osprey on the hunt. I tracked him for quite a while but when he finally decided to dive down to grab a fish, he was on the other side of the berm so I missed it! I did catch him carrying off a rather big fish in the distance with a seagull making a brief attempt at stealing his prize.
By this time, it was getting late. We were losing daylight and we had a long walk back to the other side. We didn't actually make it to the other parking lot but there wasn't much left and we have walked that last leg many times already so we slowly headed back to the car. As I walk slower than Christian and he has a full frame sensor on his camera (so he still had enough light to take pictures for a bit longer), I headed back first.
We collected four or five more lifers! We spent the rest of our time trying to process all the pictures and videos we collected over the past week.
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On Monday, Christian headed back to work and I prepared to have to go to jury duty. I thought I was going to get away with not having to go in but they pulled me in on the very last day. Apparently, it is very risky going in at the end of the week because that is when they are choosing for a lot of long trials.
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