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| Snowy Egret at Ocean Beach |
After nursing my swollen, tick-bitten leg all weekend I was eager to get back to my regular walk this morning. A few years ago I had a similar, though less-painful, reaction to a tick bite on the very first day of a four-day backpacking trip on the Lost Coast. I figured if I could backpack then, I could walk today, and thankfully today's walk went painlessly despite continued swelling.
Incidentally, when I went to the pharmacy to pick up my doxycycline prescription I joked that our cat is on the same antibiotic. (Unfortunately, Coco, who's around 18 years old, has to go back to the vet today to see if we can get her eating again, since she's refusing to eat even her favorite foods.)
Anyway, I was glad I brought the FZ80 along on my walk because there were three snowy egrets hunting for mole crabs along the shoreline. I don't think I've ever seen snowies feeding at Ocean Beach before. People let their dogs chase them before I could get down there, but two of the three stayed in the area long enough for me to fire off a few frames. A couple of Bonaparte's gulls also swooped in at one point -- another bird I don't believe I've seen very often around here.
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| The egret nabbed a mole crab... |
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| ...then realized it was just a meatless shell and dropped it. |
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| It's the kind of thing that can ruffle one's feathers. |
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| Named for Napoleon's cousin Charles, these are the only gulls that nest in trees. |
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| They look a little bit like a tern as they glide through the air, but luckily they pounced feet-first in the shallow water. |
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| I later took a bike ride down to the Cliff House to check things out. A few whimbrels were feeding down by Sutro Baths, and the Seal Rocks had a fair number of pelicans on them. |
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