Sometimes it's good to remember the good weather when it's not so nice outside. Last September there was a conference in San Diego that we were participating in. I met several of the lawyers from Salt Lake as well as brother Mikey to attend. On the 7th, I got out for a few hours, and then very early again on the 8th.
On the 7th in the afternoon, I got some time to go to "Bird Rock". This is a famous place just north of the city that has a particular rock on which the Brown Pelican and Cormorant numbers are pretty high. All I had was the D7000 with the Sigma 50-500, but I with the good light, I got some ok shots.
Later that afternoon, I spent about 4 hours at the San Diego Zoo. Many amazing birds. Great place to practice shooting in understory light. Later I plan a post just on the zoo, but this White-Crowned Robin-Chat is just one example. It is a Middle Eastern/Northern African bird.
That evening, while talking with some of the other conference attendee's, I met Greg Baker, a forensic engineer also from Portland. He talked a bit about birds, and we decided to go birding the next morning. Greg turned out to be a serious (really serious) birder and the next morning took us to a location north of town where I got 3 lifers!!!
Lifer 1 is the California Thrasher.
Lifer 2 is the Clapper Rail. I had looked for this bird a couple of times before, especially up in the Bay Area, but got a good close look here.
Lifer number 3 is the California Towhee. Like the other two, very local and fairly rare.
Anna's Hummingbird was also around. This female was pretty cooperative.
And it is always fun to get a close look at a House Wren.
We also saw a number of Ring-Billed Gulls.
So here is the weirdest part of the whole trip. We were sitting in a very large conference room at the Marriott Hotel next to the bay. About 3 in the afternoon, the lights went out. We thought that it was just local, but it turned out that some guy had messed up clear over by Arizona, and all of the southern border of California, including all of San Diego, and clear down into Mexico on the Baha Pennisula was completely without electricity. No elevators, traffic lights, or any other power anywhere!!!! As downtown tried to clear out, it just clogged up and ground to a halt. And talk about really weird, walking around without any street lights, shop lights or anything except car lights was outright scary. Had to open the window of my hotel to keep from roasting to death, but literally no lights. Amazing to see the stars from downtown San Diego. Sure made me think a bit about how to prep for that kind of emergency.
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