Bolsa Chica Wet Lands

I work a 4-10 work week, meaning I work four ten hour days and have weekends off. Now I normally take Wednesdays off to break up the week. Well the Tuesday before I had a somewhat long day. I worked my normal job and then right after work I had a girls varsity soccer game followed by a boys varsity basketball game. There are various shots from those two games posted below if you'd like to take a look. Any hoot, normally I just stay home and relax by working on pictures or playing an on-line game called 2Moons. Well after a couple of hours doing my thing I decided to get off my butt and do something, so I decided to head out to the Bolsa chica Wet Lands to take a look and have a nice walk. I've never been there and didn't really know what to expect. Since I expected most of the wildlife to be birds I only brought my 300 f/2.8 with my 1.4x attached. I assumed that most of what I was would be at a distance and I wanted to get as close as possible.

For the first part of my walk I walked along a retaining wall separating small bodies of water. On one side was a rather small water area, which ran along Pacific Coast Highway and Bolsa Chica Beach. On the other side (north) was a larger portion of water which did look like what you might expect to see for wet lands. It was during this portion of the walk where I saw this bird. He was a good distance away, so I decided to take a couple of shots to show the contrast between the white and the darker background.

Further along the trail I came to a section that allowed me much closer access to the shoreline. It was in this area where dead trees were protruding out of the water. I also found this hawk taking a break. I waited for a bit hoping I could catch him taking off and in flight, but he just stayed there, so continued my trek along the trail.

Continuing along the trail there were spots where catus and some flowers bloomed, so I tried something different and took some closeup shots with my 300 f/2.8.

I then came to the end of the road. The trail was closed due to restoration so I back tracked and took a higher portion of the trail back, which was along the fence line. It was along this line where I saw this fella standing in some tall grass. I had to shoot this through a fence and was very happy with how it came out.

Before heading back down the trail on the training wall I saw a several of these. I was able to get pretty close to this guy and take this shot. He was standing at a drainage where the salt water and fresh water meet looking for fish.

As I walked back with my 300 slung on my shoulder I saw this pelican flying towards me. I brought my camera up quickly and was able to take a few shots before he past me and flew into the sun.

Just before I reached the parking lot there is a foot bridge to cross. It was near the end of that where I found this little guy floating along the reeds.