Adventures in Monterey Pt 1

On my way down to Carmel to meet Christian, among the hellish labor day weekend traffic, I made a quick stop at Jetty Road/Elkhorn Slough to take a look at the Sea Otters that frequent the area. I thought I only had about 20 minutes before I needed to get back on the road so that Christian and I would have a similar Carmel ETA. Turns out traffic was even worse for him and I could have taken longer and worked a bit harder to learn the camera and get better photos, but these will serve as try #1.

The otters were mostly sleeping in a big raft when I got there, so the opportunity for adorable action shots weren't there.

Rubbing eyes was about the most action these guys would do. A cropped shot where nothing seemed to be quite in focus. 

This one floated a bit away from the main raft and was the closest otter, but the bastard did nothing but backfloat

Foot tags abound

Wait, wait, an exciting eye scratch

Cute little critters that would eat your face off if you give them a chance.

Note: Edited for egregious typos

Dusky Warbler

Went hunting for the Dusky Warbler at Coyote Point Marsh in San Mateo first found by Logan Kahle and Bob Toleno on 10/8.

Admittedly this is a bird I never would have IDed correctly if I had run into it by myself without knowing it was there, but once you know what to look for and a shit ton of patience we were able to find it. That supercilium almost makes it look like a wren.

Arrived a touch after 10am and a few people were already staked out. After maybe 30 minutes Adam Dudley and Dorian Anderson got a quick 3 second look, while I was busy looking at the wrong bird, a dull common yellowthroat. Then a lot of time went by without hearing or seeing it. At about 1pm I decided to give up and head back to the car. On the path back I ran into another birder, Patrick, that separated from the group and had just got on the bird. This time the bird gave us much better looks. Still skulking in the shadows and not sitting still for very long, but longer than 3 seconds. We saw it off and on for about 45 minutes, when I decided it was finally time to go into lab.

This is what a dusky warbler's butt looks like

I got a new camera recently and I have gotten it out only a few times so far. Damn grant writing and bench science screwing up my photography game. This yellow-rumped warbler is far from crushed, the focus is a bit off, but I am posting them anyways to be able to compare to 6 months from now when I get a little better with the camera. Hopefully my easy bird picture taking abilities improve quickly





Speaking of easy birds, this black phoebe was sitting on the same culvert that the dusky warbler was skulking around. Use that as a reference if you go out on the search.







And finally a couple of Mallards and a coot, because why not, new camera.







The end