Santee Lakes

Had a wonderful stroll along Santee Lakes in Santee, California.  These man-made lakes are fed with reclaimed water and are just teaming with bird life!

Belted Kingfisher

Crow chasing a red-shouldered hawk.

Double-crested cormorant 

Grace's Warbler, Western Form 

 Nuttall's Woodpecker

 Osprey

 Phainopepla

 Red-Shouldered Hawk

 Red-Winged Blackbird

 Ruddy Duck getting out of Dodge!

Wood Duck, likely a beneficiary of one of the many wood-duck nesting boxes that have been added to the trees in the park.

Whoa, Duck for Cover!

Ruddy Duck, non-breeding colors, Mission River Preserve. The ducks are back! Every fall about this time the migratory birds come down from Alaska and Canada to bask in our considerably warmer waters. They're not out in huge numbers but the migration has definitely started. There were ruddy ducks, brandts, stilts, plovers, buffleheads, willets, curlews, godwits and widgeons out lounging on the river muching on crustaceans, seaweed and whatnot. I saw a godwit take out a small crab. Fascinating sight. The bird actually took off the claws one at a time, eating each, and then gulped the carapace. They are smart little guys. Gosh but it's tough being on the lower rungs of the food chain!

Duck and Cover

The ducks are back! It's my favorite part of fall as the huge flocks of every sort of species of duck and waterfowl converge onto our San Diego waterways. Shown is a large flock of ruddy ducks in their dusky fall plummage.

Duck Soup

Another picture from the Bay. It's been storming out. Windy, cold & rainy so this is from November. There were ducks everywhere. Most of these are Ruddy Ducks. It took me a while to realize that the telltale blue beaks were gone because it's winter. Go figure. There was one Western Grebe, Aechmophorus occidentalis, in the middle.

Ruddy Duckling

Even the Ruddy Ducks had a few ducklings following them around. They don't get the telltale blue bill until they get older (assuming it's a male) but they were sticking close to Mom and Pop. This one came up to get a closer look.

Ruddy Duck

Spent the afternoon snapping duck pics. This one is one of my favorite Ruddy Ducks. He's always good for a few pictures and for some reason or another is always scratching. I suspect that's how they keep their feathers oiled and fluffed full of air.

The company had the anniversary dinner tonight for us old timers. They reserved the Aerospace museum so we got to tour the museum for free. There were some really cool planes including a blackbird out front, some really old biplanes, a mig or two and a recreation of the Apollo space capsule. There was also a GPS satellite which, ironically, looked just like in the pictures I've seen on the web.

We sat at the gay ghetto table where we spent the time talking about real estate strategy and what markets were moving. I may retire yet and, in the meantime, a little effort seems to keep me moving in the right direction.