Birds and a Turtle at Huntington Beach State Park

After my husband and his friend went to Huntington Beach State Park with Marianne on Saturday and told me about what a nice time they had, I wanted to go and see the area too.  On Sunday DH and I took a ride over and took a nice walk on one trail and the beach.  Here are some photos of what we saw.  The turtle was still in the same place Marianne and the guys saw him on Saturday.  It looked like he set up a spot for himself and hadn't moved at all.  We also saw some Terns, seagulls, egrets and another species of birds I am not familiar with at all.  Every time we go to this park we see something new and exciting.

I wanted to see the turtle they saw and here it is.  He didn't move at all but I wanted to get a few photos.

The trees, bushes and plants are all so pretty and I had to get a few photos to share.

Then I was off to the beach area to see what birds I could find.  I like the way there are plaques showing you pictures and explaining some of what you may get to see.

It's nice to know what you are looking at and learn some information about the species.

Here are some birds we did get to see.  I'm still not sure any of these are actual Least Terns though.  See what you think.

This guy actually sticks his bill down into the sand looking for food.

There are always seagulls.

This just might be a photo of the Least Terns.

I have no idea what these are.

But he wasn't interested in having his photo taken even after the preening.

But I kept shooting anyway.  The further he walked the more the lighting wasn't favorable.

A family outing or two?

A few more birds I found interesting to photograph.

They were happy to have nice weather and water.  This one is doing his "happy" dance.

Then we decided to go over to the marsh.  The last time we went it was very dry and you could really see the oyster beds.  Today it had a few feet of water and was a prettier scene.  I found this egret hiding in the reeds.  What a  great photo I thought, but I had to hurry since a group of children were running toward me down the boardwalk and I knew their yelling would scare him off.

And I was right.  I had just enough time, barely, to get this photo, and this one of him taking off for a safer area.

We went further down the boardwalk to see what we could find and perhaps get a few more photos before the kids caught up with us.  There were a few birds on this piling.  I have no idea what we saw but they were pretty and quite happy just hanging out.  It's a good thing I got these photos when I did because after a few minutes the kids showed up and scared them off.

This one has such pretty green eyes, doesn't it?

Birds sure do clean themselves a lot.

Luckily I got a closer photo of this bird's eye.  I had just enough time to put on the telescopic lens and get this image.

So that's my Sunday outing!  There's always something exciting to see and photograph.  I can see this is going to become a regular activity.  I even controlled myself and didn't take dozens of photos for a change.

All photos were taken by me with Canon PowerShot S3IS, one with a telescopic lense, no cropping or any work of any kind.