Summer Sunsets

With all of the fires in Southern California right now we’ve had some amazing light.  The only thing missing has been clouds at sunset.  We finally started getting some and I was hoping that I would have a great sunrise set to show off, however, I messed up and chose the wrong day to get up early!  When clouds do develop here in the summer, they have the nasty habit of not sticking around very long, making sunrises a bit of a gamble.

On Wednesday night there were few clouds, but there was a thick blanket of smoke covering the eastern horizon.  This looked promising and I thought I might get lucky and catch a nice sunrise the following morning.  However, most of the smoke cleared out overnight.  Some interesting clouds appeared Thursday night but the light show never really developed.  Well, I assumed that the clouds would evaporate overnight.  Turns out I was wrong.  I remember waking up Friday morning and the first thing I noticed was my room filled with purple and pink light.  I staggered to the window and saw the peak of an incredible sunrise.  There was too little time to get outside to capture it, so you will have to make do with much more subdued sunset shots, most from later that evening.

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Sunset at Lake Los Carneros, Goleta, CA

Reddish Egret in Goleta

I’ve managed to capture photos of the Reddish Egret nearly every day since I first saw it land at the UCSB Lagoon on wednesday afternoon.  I haven’t looked for it today but might head over to Goleta Beach a bit later.  Starting sometime late thursday or early friday, it moved to Goleta Slough and stopped appearing at the lagoon.  Although the viewing distance is greater at Goleta Beach, the background is much nicer.

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“In Pursuit”  –  UCSB Lagoon

Almost Lost

Since it’s been ridiculously hot out this weekend, I’ve spent most of my time inside working on my photo catalog.  While organizing my recent influx of Reddish Egret and White-tailed Kite photos, I realized that I had a bunch of older bird photos I had meant to post.  I’m really happy with the portraits, in particular the California Quail and Wrentit.

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“California Quail”  –  Lake Los Carneros, Goleta, CA

Osprey at LLC

I’ve been so busy photographing the Reddish Egret, I almost forgot about the Osprey I saw at Lake Los Carneros (LLC) on Tuesday.  The same bird (most likely) was seen at the lake earlier this month while I was in Colorado.  I’m really glad I got a chance to see it and get some pictures.  Osprey are not commonly seen at LLC, but are found in other nearby areas of the county, particularly Lake Cachuma and along the coast.  This particular bird seemed to be investigating new hunting grounds and only stayed for about 20 minutes before flying west.

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Reddish Egret at UCSB

I had some amazing luck today.  While on a quick walk to the lagoon, a juvenile Reddish Egret landed within 50 feet of me.  Even more amazing, when I walked closer it didn’t fly away!  Actually, it seemed completely focused on hunting and ignored all the people walking by.  After watching it for a couple minutes I gambled that it would stick around and ran off to find my camera.  Thankfully it was still around when I got back.  Unlike most other herons/egrets, Reddish Egrets have a very animated style of hunting and are particularly fun to watch.  It’s amazing they catch anything with all of their running about.

For non-birders reading this, you may be wondering… “what’s the big deal?”  Well, this is the rarest of the herons, with one of the most restricted ranges in North America.  This species is known to make brief appearances in Santa Barbara County, but it is far from common.  Here’s a small sampling from the huge number of photos I took.

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“Elegance”  –  Lagoon at UCSB, Santa Barbara, CA

Aerial Prey Exchanges

As promised, here are a few sequences of aerial prey exchanges from the parent kites to their young.  There is quite a bit of competition between the young White-tailed Kites, which can result in the occasional sibling squabble.

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Sequence #1

White-tailed Kites Galore

Over the past week or so I have accumulated hundreds of White-tailed Kite photos, mostly of the juveniles.  In an effort to catch-up all, I’m putting up a lot of my recent favorites.  This post is an assemblage of non-sequential shots.  The next post will show off several aerial prey transfer sequences.  All shots were taken at Lake Los Carneros in Goleta.

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Rain… in August?

I can’t remember the last time we had rain in August in Santa Barbara.  I’m certainly not complaining, since I’m happy to have something other than boring fog and low clouds.  A chance of thunderstorms was predicted for yesterday but we only had some light sprinkles and generally overcast skies for the bulk of the day.  This kind of weather can lead to some interesting bird sightings, especially during the beginning of the fall migration.  Lately we have only had mallard ducks at Lake Los Carneros, so I was surprised to find a lone Ring-necked Duck yesterday.  These generally shouldn’t arrive until much later in the fall.  In addition, there was a Kingfisher very actively hunting and calling.  This was the first time I had ever seen one make multiple dives without landing.

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“Silvery Skies”  –  Lake Los Carneros, Goleta, CA

White-tailed Kites – Fledglings

As promised, here are some pictures of the second batch of young kites.  They are a ton of fun to watch, especially when all three are bickering over who gets to land on the nest first.

-As always, you can view a larger version by clicking on each image.

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“A Difference of Opinion”  –  Lake Los Carneros, Goleta, CA

White-tailed Kites – Adults

The Lake Los Carneros kites have been putting on a fantastic show recently and the adults have successfully fledged three more youngsters.  They started flying two weekends ago and at first only two were in the air, but by the end of that weekend all three had taken to the sky.  The new nest is in a great location for photography and I’ve been out taking advantage of the interesting skies, courtesy of the La Brea fire, and the cooperative birds.  I’ll post photos of the fledglings in my next update.

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“The Launch”  –  Lake Los Carneros, Goleta, CA