Killdeer at sunrise, Point Reyes National Seashore

One of the most fun parts of spending years photographing wildlife in Point Reyes National Seashore was that I never knew what subjects I would find on a given day. Sure, I always came up with a plan of what I would be targeting as I drove through Marin County to arrive at a trailhead before sunrise, but a lot of my best work was from the luck of finding something unexpected along the way. On this particular morning, I had hoped to photograph shorebirds on the beach of Limantour Spit for my first trip to Point Reyes in 2011. Instead, I was treated to an amazingly colorful sunrise over the thick fog blanketing the rest of the park. After spending some time watching the fog roll over Inverness Ridge, I continued on to my targeted destination and pulled into the Limantour Beach parking lot. As I got out of the car into the cool (and so refreshing) early morning air of Point Reyes, I was greeted by the call of two plovers in the dew covered grass nearby. I quickly grabbed my camera out of the car and set to work photographing these beautiful shorebirds in the morning light. As the killdeer eventually started crossing the pavement, I left them behind and headed to the beach with their calls to each other still echoing behind me.

View more photos of one of my favorite areas of Point Reyes National Seashore in my Limantour Beach Gallery.

Calling killdeer, morning light, Point Reyes National Seashore

On my first hike of the new year (to Point Reyes National Seashore, of course!) I was greeted by a pair of killdeer right in the grassy area just off of the parking lot at the Limantour Trailhead. As I watched, the two of them wandered in opposite directions (with this one staying closer to me) while they foraged for breakfast, but they stayed in constant communication with eachother. They fell into a real rythm in the timing and pattern of their calls to each other, so it became easier to guess when to press the shutter to get this bird in action.