No new birds !

I have no new lifers since my last post – the summer slowdown is in effect for me.

I’m still getting out almost everyday, vacillating between my normal three spots –

Gualala Point Regional Park
Mill Bend Preserve – specifically, the area I call “The kayak launch” (west side)
Gualala Bluff Trail

Each of these locations are pretty close to home, and they make an easy before dinner or after dinner trip. The Gualala Point Regional Point is the roomiest with most options – it’s east side that faces the Gualala River can have more small birds – finches, sparrows, wrens, jays where the west-side is more about sea birds – gulls, pelicans, osytercatchers, terns and so on.

The Osprey chicks around home here are no longer chicks – they are full fledged juveniles, making lots of noise around the homestead. For the last two years, I’ve known roughly where their nest is and have made half-hearted attempts to locate it in the past. A couple days ago, the juveniles were particularly noisy, so I decided to see if I could find them near the nest. Pretty sure I now have a location on the nest – now I have to wait until next year to see if I can see it with fledglings/chicks !

Speaking of juveniles, the Cooper’s Hawk family in the bay area are also all juveniles; just before we left to come back to Gualala, I visited them for a couple days — and man are they active. The six juveniles spread out around a few hundred yards from their nest, while the mother (?) sits across the street.

A few days back I got another supreme showing of whales, this time within the Gualala Point park, near the aptly named Whale Watch Point. Lots and lots of spouts and tails – when you spot your first spout, it becomes quite addicting intently scanning the horizon looking for the next spout or tail !

I’ll leave you with a mish-mash of photos from the last few weeks.