So one beautiful pre-dawn morning in October, I woke up early and decided to drive to the Marin Headlands and San Francisco for some nature walking, photography, and Pokemon hunting.
This post ISN'T about that, but rather what happened on the drive home! Confused yet? Welcome to my world.
So after a few hours of fun, I began the drive home. I was north bound on 101 when, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted what appeared to be a large gaggle of geese or swans. I quickly swerved off at the next exit and backtracked to see if I just had birds on the brain. Which, of course I do.
Except these birds were real! I had inadvertently found the Corte Madera Marsh Ecological Preserve. And what had caught my eye was a large pod of American White Pelicans.
They seemed really close to the shore, but actually weren't that close.
It was really exciting to see these great creatures closeup and have them swirl around overhead as they came in for landing on their little island.
I was not the only Pelican Paparazzi there! There were two other photogs who both had better equipment than me. Booo! Just kidding. But I did take a picture of one of them from across the lake as I thought she looked pretty cool.
As you can no doubt observe in the pictures above, there were actually quite a few other migratory and local birds hanging out as well, so this was quite an exciting find for me.
Northern Shoveler
Two adorable Snowy Egret buddies.
Greater Yellowlegs
American Avocet (non-breeding male) (Thanks to the wonderful people on Twitter who helped me identify!)
Long-billed Curlew with American Avocets
All in all, there were approximately 10 snowy egrets around the marsh.
And two Black-necked Stilts in the far back.
What a wonderful, haphazard birding adventure!
xoxo
