Northern Pintail Drake

I spent Sunday morning hiking around Tennessee Valley, hoping to have a chance to photography a bobcat or coyote. I did see a bobcat, although it was quite far away and in an unreachable meadow. The fog stayed around much heavier than the forecast called for, and I left the park with just a few shots on my memory card of some deer. On a whim, I decided to stop at Bothin Marsh (under the Highway 101 overpass, where it meets with CA-1) to look for birds. The light was awful, the fog was heavy, but the birds were there!

This is an awesome time of year to check out the marsh, which is a very heavily used stretch of Bay Trail, since the Northern Pintails are out in full force. They winter in this marsh, and on a previous visit here a polite birder that I chatted with there told me that it actually serves as a lek (ie, where the females pick a mate for the coming year). That certainly seems to be the case, since the males are constantly preening and trying to look their best, and very often a group of them will follow around a single female. So even with the poor light, I took a ton of shots of these elegant ducks, since its not often you get a chance to be so close to them!

Also, if you haven't heard, one of my images of two male tule elk fighting during the rut at Point Reyes is in the running for the Viewer's Choice award in the 2010 National Geographic photo contest. If you haven't already, I would really appreciate it if you follow this link to the NG site and rate my image as a 10! It's such an honor just to be mentioned in the same line as National Geographic, and its just so cool to have an image anywhere on their site! Thanks to everyone that voted for me yesterday -- a lot of votes came through for my image, and I'm potentially within range of the top spot with another strong turnout today! (Today, Dec. 15, is the last day to vote.)


Shared as part of the World Bird Wednesday meme -- follow this link to check out the other entries for the week!

Tule Elk Face Off -- Plus, I Need your votes for the National Geographic Contest

So here's another image that has been sitting in my queue, ready to be posted, just waiting for the right moment. Well, today is finally the right time -- and there's a good reason why:

One of my other images from this fight has been selected as a nominee for the Viewer's Choice Award in the 2010 National Geographic Photo Contest. I could really use your help in the voting -- please follow the link below and rate my elk as a 10!

Please follow this link to the National Geographic site and rate my image a 10! The voting ends on December 15.

This is the image in the contest, which I blogged back in August:


Thanks for voting and please spread the word to anyone that might be interested! These are both shots of a fight between two male tule elk during the rutting season in Point Reyes National Seashore.

Quail in the rain

A male California quail watching over his family group near the Bear Valley Visitor's Center in Point Reyes National Seashore. This is a fun time of year to see quail (although they weren't too keen to see me), since the family groups are really quite large. I would guess there were at least 25 birds in this flock that was scouring the grounds near the visitor's center parking lot. As soon as they saw me from across the road though, they disappeared into the shrubs. It was pretty amazing how easily they faded into the landscape that was just in front of me. This lone male was watching over the proceedings from a high perch (a fence post in this case), which I have often seen them do. Perhaps it is a trait of nobility evident in our state bird.

As for the shot, the conditions were clearly not ideal for photography, with heavily overcast skies and even some drizzle. I was happy to get at least this sharp frame out of the bunch though, since I'm a big fan of birds sitting on cool old fenceposts. I also love having some of the drizzle visible in the frame, although my camera may beg to differ. It's interesting to see how far a tiny raindrop can fall in 1/125 of a second!

Semipalmated plover

Before I saw the huge flock of sandpipers flowing along the beach at Limantour Spit in Point Reyes National Seashore, I had a wonderful encounter with 15-20 semipalmated plovers on that same stretch of beach. It was a great time of day for shorebird photography -- mid-morning with a rising tide. All of the shorebirds were more interested in napping and preening than running around and feeding. They likely spent the early hours feeding on the estuarine mudflats during low tide, and then were ready to rest and digest on the beach.

Incoming

A group of shorebirds lands while a second wave approaches the runway. This is just a portion of the large flock of western sandpipers, sanderlings, and dunlin that I saw along Limantour Spit in Point Reyes National Seashore this day.

View more photographs of sandpipers.