Pelican's in Flight

This is officially my last post of the year and what a year it was.

I was able to attend and teach at the last official Mpix Meet-up. I was published in Sports Illustrated (dream come true), and had numerous pictures published in our local paper for sports coverage. I also have had the opportunity to cover my first college basketball at Cal State Long Beach.

Having the New Year's weekend off I decided to make my final venture for the year to the San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary. I was simply looking to get out and relax while shooting and for me wildlife is the thing to do. I will start this post with the end. Just as I left the sanctuary I grabbed this last sunset shot.

Now as my last outting at Bolsa Chica Wet Lands, the bird activity here was very quite. I was able to take a couple of shots, but didn't really get anything until I was about ready to leave right before sunset. As I was walking past one of the last ponds I saw this pelican continually flying circles around this pond fishing. He would do several fly-bys before diving and catching his dinner. As he continued this, I simply hung out waiting for him to perform his actions closer so that I could take some better shots. So this post is dedicated to the pelican.

Enjoy

San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary

It's the first day the year and I thought I'd get out and explore the San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary in Irvine. I've been out there before with my wife to take a look, but we only walked around a very small portion of it, so this time I decided to check out the whole area and see what it had to offer in wildlife.

Of course I brought my camera, as you never know what might show it's face or what opportunities might arise. Here are some shots I took while exploring the area.

I have read in a forum that I frequent (Fred Miranda) that there are some bob cats in the area. Now the San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary is a large area and the posters never indicated where these bob cats were located, so I just kept that in the back of my mind while I did my walk about. Sure enough after walking along one of the back trails I spotted this guy walking along the trail in front of me. I took some shots to document my findings just in case he decided to go into the brush as I continued to follow him.

At one point he stopped and turned, looking at me. Now I was still a good distance behind him and these are heavily cropped, but I continued to follow taking pictures.

At one point I lost him and while continuing along the trail I saw this little foot path that led to the flood control and bike trail. I decided to take a look and found him again as he continued on his way. I took this last shot as he crossed the path going into deep brush.