Watery Wednesday #37

Can you believe it's time for Watery Wednesday? If you haven't visited my meme before; if you don't know what it's like to get cyber wet, Click Here or on the icon at the end of this post and check it out!

I went to Bolsa Chica Wetlands yesterday. I've got to say, when I took the shot on the meme's main page, I was standing beside photographers with their tripods and massive lenses. I think they were all waiting to capture the heron as it caught a fish. I felt like such a novice standing there with my little camera and built in zoom. I felt like they were shooting their cannons (Boom!), and I came in with a little six-shooter going pop, pop! I wonder if they laughed and called me a rookie after I'd taken my shots and walked off. LOL!


The birds below were really putting on a show. At various parts of the preserve, there would be about 10-15 birds flying above the water, scouting it for fish and then they would dive bomb into the water. All you could hear was them squawking and the sound of them plummeting into the water. Click on any to enlarge or you'll miss some of the water coming off the birds as they took off.


I think I spent most of my time photographing these birds. They were so fast I would never get them going into the water but I could get them coming out. Because of the delayed snap of the digital camera it took me a while before I figured out the timing and then it was on! The minute they splashed I had to snap the camera as I aimed at the splash of water. By the time it clicked, the bird was coming up out of the water. I was like a big kid. LOL! I actually got more good shots then I thought I did. I'd probably still be standing there if my batteries didn't fizzle out on me.


And you can see in the one below on the left that I actually got one coming up with a fish in it's mouth!



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Watery Wednesday #27

Am I the only one who can't believe it's already Wednesday again? I thought this made for an interesting picture. This is one of the shots I took at Bolsa Chica. It's a wildlife preservation so how did this one plastic chair get in the water and why is it still there?



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My World Tuesday - Birds of Bolsa Chica

Excuse my French but I walked my ass off today. I was already a good walk into the wetlands when I took the photo below. I walked down the path on the right. Now, on the left about midway up the picture do you see the houses waaaaay in the back against the sky. I walked down the path on the right and then waaaay over there. All I keep hearing in my head are these lyrics, "What kind of fool am I?" LOL!

Please correct me if I got any of the names of the birds wrong.





BLUE BILL DUCK - I tried by best to get a good shot of this duck because the first thing I noticed about it was the blue bill. But each one that I saw seemed to know I was trying to take its photo and it would dive under water and turn up even further away from me.


EGRET - I haven't learned the differences between the egrets yet so I'll just identify this as an Egret. It was fun to watch this one tip toeing through the water seemingly stirring up life under the water and then it would duck it's head under the water trying to catch something.


LONG BILLED CURLEW - I could be wrong about this one too but it's the only one I identified that had a beak this long.

BLACK NAPED TERN - Not the best shot but worthy of posting just the same (smile).

I think these are sandpipers.

AMERICAN WIDEON - I was fascinated with this one because of the green around its eyes.


And I'm not sure what this one is either. I thought it only had one leg but when I got closer the other leg came down and it flew off.



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The Bathing Pelicans

I needed to get out and really wanted to take some pics today so I decided to go to the zoo. When I got over to where the pelicans were it was a real treat for me to see one of them playing in the water. I thought it would be one of those incidents where you'd better snap it quickly because it might not do it again, but it was doing some serious bathing around the waterfall.



I had a field day trying to get just the right shot. So there are going to be several shots out of the many I took. I just had too many favorites to keep this short.


After they got through bathing they got out and began to go through this preening ritual and wing flapping to dry off that afforded me the opportunity to take some really great shots. At least I think they're great.





I wish I could share them all but I'm not even going to tell you how many pelican shots I've added to my library. LOL!