More Birds from the Salton Sea

JohnDCJohnDC Registered Users Posts: 379 Major grins
edited January 6, 2008 in Wildlife
I did a quick photo trip to the Salton Sea between Christmas and New Years. Compared with previous visits, the birds were keeping their distance--hiding out in the closed parts of the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge. (By the way, be careful if you go there after the rains. The alkali mud is everywhere and it is treacherous.)


1. Snow geese fly-by. One of the Refuge staff said there were about 28,000 snow geese at the Refuge this year.

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2. This is a good year for sandhill cranes at the Refuge. I saw more than 100 on this trip, compared with about 25 on previous trips.

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3. Even the burrowing owls were being shy. As soon as I raised my camera, this one ducked into a piece of irrigation pipe (part of an artificial burrow project). A local nickname for these birds is "Johnny owls."

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4. Highly cropped photo of sand hill cranes flying over. They were using the more remote parts of the Refuge, and this was the closest I could get.

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5. Snow geese had good reason to be shy. As I left on a Friday afternoon, the hunters were streaming in for the Saturday hunt.

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Comments

  • raptorcaptorraptorcaptor Registered Users Posts: 3,968 Major grins
    edited January 5, 2008
    We must have just missed one another. We were at the Salton Sea inbetween Xmas and New Years too. No wonder the birds were skittish there was a lot of shotgun blasts all over the place! Did you stay in Calipatria?

    Nice shots John! I like the burrowing owl peering from his "burrow"
    Glenn

    My website | NANPA Member
  • jwearjwear Registered Users Posts: 8,013 Major grins
    edited January 5, 2008
    nice work John thumb.gif the owl makes the shots all around 2 eyes peeking closed eyes and now one eye peeking rolleyes1.gif thanks again for your sharing all the info from your first trips clap.gif how would you like to take a trip down to SS on sunday and do some shootingrolleyes1.gifrolleyes1.gifrolleyes1.gifrolleyes1.gifrolleyes1.gifrolleyes1.gif
    Jeff W

    “PHOTOGRAPHY IS THE ‘JAZZ’ FOR THE EYES…”

    http://jwear.smugmug.com/
  • dbaker1221dbaker1221 Registered Users Posts: 4,482 Major grins
    edited January 5, 2008
    awesome capturesclap.gif
    **If I keep shooting, I'm bound to hit something**
    Dave
  • MaestroMaestro Registered Users Posts: 5,395 Major grins
    edited January 5, 2008
    I really like the second to last photo of the sandie in flight. Great job!
    Stephen
    www.capture-the-pixel.com

  • HarrybHarryb Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 22,708 Major grins
    edited January 5, 2008
    Excellent shots John, some very good comps in this set.

    If you want to get close to sandhills come on down to Florida. I had two on my lawn yesterday. :D
    Harry
    http://behret.smugmug.com/ NANPA member
    How many photographers does it take to change a light bulb? 50. One to change the bulb, and forty-nine to say, "I could have done that better!"
  • riddim_makerriddim_maker Registered Users Posts: 1,835 Major grins
    edited January 5, 2008
    Hey John, excellent captures, especially the Owl clap.gifclap.gifclap.gif
    I'm in Palm Springs at the moment and it's raining,
    you know what that means for Salton Sea:
    No stopping on the shoulder and no off road.:D
    Russ
  • JohnDCJohnDC Registered Users Posts: 379 Major grins
    edited January 5, 2008
    riddim_maker wrote:
    Hey John, excellent captures, especially the Owl clap.gifclap.gifclap.gif
    I'm in Palm Springs at the moment and it's raining,
    you know what that means for Salton Sea:
    No stopping on the shoulder and no off road.:D

    Thanks Russ. Maybe the mud is giving the birds a break from the hunters. If you find any good photo locations in the Palm Springs area, please let me know.
  • JohnDCJohnDC Registered Users Posts: 379 Major grins
    edited January 6, 2008
    Harryb wrote:
    Excellent shots John, some very good comps in this set.

    If you want to get close to sandhills come on down to Florida. I had two on my lawn yesterday. :D

    Thanks, Harry. I do need to get to Florida with a camera. Before I got into photography, I lived in north Florida for a year, and now I've got a big craving to back just to do photography... The only thing on our lawns here are some possums and the neighbors' cats. On the other hand, there are no mosquitoes, yellow flies, and squirrels, either...
  • JohnDCJohnDC Registered Users Posts: 379 Major grins
    edited January 6, 2008
    jwear wrote:
    nice work John thumb.gif the owl makes the shots all around 2 eyes peeking closed eyes and now one eye peeking rolleyes1.gif thanks again for your sharing all the info from your first trips clap.gif how would you like to take a trip down to SS on sunday and do some shootingrolleyes1.gifrolleyes1.gifrolleyes1.gifrolleyes1.gifrolleyes1.gifrolleyes1.gif

    Thanks, Jeff. SS in the rain sounds good. You're driving?
  • jwearjwear Registered Users Posts: 8,013 Major grins
    edited January 6, 2008
    JohnDC wrote:
    Thanks, Jeff. SS in the rain sounds good. You're driving?
    you do meen sliding :D I am sure thumb.gif
    Jeff W

    “PHOTOGRAPHY IS THE ‘JAZZ’ FOR THE EYES…”

    http://jwear.smugmug.com/
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