It's been too long since I've been over to Huntington Beach State Park and since we have company from up North yesterday gave us an excuse to forget about everything else and go see what we've been missing for far too long. The tide was just coming in but we still managed to see a few new things and re-visit some of the common things we always see. The rosacea spoonbills were still hanging out, a rare sight to see, along with the herons, egrets, anhinga, moorhen, wood storks, alligators and a few little birds that were new to me. Our visitor was amazed at all the birds and even saw an alligator crossing the path, something you don't see back in New Jersey.
Despite having my camera on the wrong setting I was still able to get some pretty decent photos. I purposely left my tele-converter lens on to get the far away shots but forgot to change the setting in the menu. I wondered why my photos looked a little "off" when I uploaded them, then came the dawn, duh. Reading up on the setting I discovered that I can leave it on even when the tele-converter lens isn't on. So now I'll leave it alone.
The day started out in with the perfect temperature and breeze but by the time we left it was a very hot 88 degrees and we were exhausted. I could tell the birds were feeling it also since a lot of them left to gather in the trees where it must be a lot cooler.
The following photos are of a group of birds hanging out on the shore quite a distance from the causeway we cross to go into the park.
Moorhen
Little Blue Heron
Tri-color Heron
Snowy Egret
Wood storks and Rosacea Spoonbill
Wood storks
Wood storks and Cormorant
Wood storks, Rosacea Spoonbill and Anhinga
NEW to me - Semipalmated Plover
Sand Piper
Birds in Flight
We are at that time of year where it is hard to identify some of the birds since they are changing into their Winter feathers. I have no idea what type of sand piper that is above, it doesn't exactly match anything in the book.
So now is the time you can all get in on telling me which birds I've identified wrong :)
I'll be back later with some of the pretty flowers, show you how the cattails have changed now that summer is over and I've captured a spider and alligator too in my photos.
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Comments: 25
One of them is a little blue and maybe the other two are tri-color, The first and third photos have that dark head thing going on, the middle one looks more tri-color.
I prefer Nana to Grandmom, it's easier for the little ones to say too.
Thank you for posting to Pretty Pictures.