It's A Small World After All

The birding was extraordinary at San Carlos Bay: Bunche Beach again late this afternoon.

The Willet above was photographed at San Carlos Bay: Bunche Beach Preserve in December 2009.

It was great that I met Frank from Montreal whom I had photographed at Little Estero Lagoon nearly a year ago. Doden's visit here as well has me believe that the preserve is no longer the unknown venue it has been.

After surveying the scene from the parking area, there was not a bird to be seen to the west, but heavy concentrations of them to the east. I made a trek toward the east channel as I had perhaps not in ten months.

The White Ibis above was photographed at San Carlos Bay: Bunche Beach Preserve in December 2009.

There were four large groups of birds seen. The groups were dominant in numbers overall by the Black Skimmer. There also were large groups of Willet and Sanderling. The other expected shore birds were for the most part seen.

My expectations of the visit to the beach were again to improve my quality of BIFs, or birds in flight. There was a lot of opportunity to do that under near perfect conditions.

The Laughing Gull above was photographed at San Carlos Bay: Bunche Beach Preserve in December 2009.

The sun was nearly set as Frank appeared to have given up on the birding opportunity shooting with the D300. I was able to coax him to stay. It was then I realized who he was.

I told him every change in my camera settings in the final 15 minutes we had to photograph the action that became especially alive under very low light conditions. Perhaps we can compare the images of our equivalent brands of gear sometime.

The Royal Tern above was photographed at San Carlos Bay: Bunche Beach Preserve in December 2009.

Minutes after sunset, I was shooting at 5000 ISO as I let Frank know. He didn't speak positively of his experience with high ISO with the D300 he's been using this past year noting excessive noise, but I let him know that he had given up on the shooting opportunity way too early.

The last species observed was the Great Blue Heron that flew in under extremely low light and was impossible to photograph at that time.