Fall Colors

Common but cool: A Northern Cardinal at Palm Point.

I got a lot of great fall warblers this weekend, but as my last post shows, my attempts to photograph them have been pretty pathetic. Most of the time, I decided not to even try: they are so delightful to watch, and here for such a short time, I didn't want to take my binoculars off them for a second.

But some of the other local birds were a bit more cooperative, and did allow some nice (or at least, semi-respectable) shots. None them are rare birds here, but they're still novelties for me, and a treat to see.

Back in California, Glenn and I would go down to the San Diego River mouth, just by Sea World, to find and try to photograph the Little Blue Herons, which are rare to nonexistent anywhere else in the state. We always found them, but they were always a way off. Today at Powers Park, I found one standing by the boat ramp, utterly unconcerned by my presence:


A heron we never saw in California was the Tricolored Heron: here, they are apparently common, but until this weekend, I've never gotten a really close look at one. This guy is a bit obscured by foliage, but it's the best shot I have so far. This was taken at Palm Point:


On Saturday, I birded Powers Park and Palm Point with another local birder (yup, I hit the same places on both Saturday and Sunday), and got a number of new butterflies: This one is (I think) a Sleepy Orange:


Neither Florida nor California are known for the standard leaves-turning-red-in-the-fall thing (there are not that many deciduous trees in SoCal, and I was told that there is a bit of color change here, but it doesn't happen until December). But the birds make fall a really colorful season here, for those who care to look for it. And the guys I managed to photograph here aren't even half of it.