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Nesting Brandt's Cormorants at the rock island at Margo Dodd/Dinosaur Caves park in Shell Beach, CA.
From my new Canon EOS 5D, using a borrowed Canon 1.4x tele-extender on my 70-200 f2.8L lens. Shot in raw, converted to jpeg and reduced for display.
The Black Skimmer, Rynchops niger, is a tern-like seabird, one of three very similar bird species in the skimmer family. It breeds in North and South America. Northern populations winter in the warmer waters of the Caribbean and the tropical and subtropical Pacific coasts, but the South American races make only shorter movements in response to annual floods which extend their feeding areas in the river shallows.
The Black Skimmer breeds in loose groups on sandbanks and sandy beaches in the Americas, the three to seven heavily dark-blotched buff or bluish eggs being incubated by both the male and female. The chicks leave the nest as soon as they hatch and lie inconspicuously in the nest depression or "scrape" where they are shaded from high temperatures by the parents. They may dig their own depressions in the sand at times. Parents feed the young almost exclusively during the day with almost no feeding occurring at night, due to the entire population of adults sometimes departing the colony to forage. Although the mandibles are of equal length at hatching, they rapidly become unequal during fledging.
The Black Skimmer is 40-50 cm long with a 107-127 cm wingspan. The males weigh about 325 g, as compared to the smaller female’s 235 g. The inner part of the bill is red, the rest mainly black, and the lower mandible is much-elongated and flexible. The eye has a dark brown iris and catlike vertical pupil, unique for a bird. The legs are red. The call is a barking kak-kak-kak.
Adults in breeding plumage have a black crown, nape and upper body. The forehead and underparts are white. The upper wings are black with white on the rear edge, and the tail and rump are dark grey with white edges. The underwing colour varies from white to dusky grey depending on region.
Juveniles are distinguished from adults by the white speckled pattern on their wings and body.
Non-breeding adults have paler and browner upperparts, and a white nape collar. Immature birds have brown upperparts with white feather tips and fringes. The underparts and forehead are white, and the underwings as the adult.
The Black Skimmer has three subspecies:
* Migratory R. n. niger breeds on the Atlantic coast of North America, and from southern California to Ecuador in the Pacific.
* R. n. cinerescens is larger, has dusky underwings, and only a narrow white fringe to its black tail, and breeds in northern and northeastern South America and the Amazon basin.
* R. n. intercedens occurs on the rest of the Atlantic coast of South America south to central Argentina.
Skimmers have a light graceful flight, with steady beats of their long wings. They feed in often large flocks, flying low over the water surface with the lower mandible skimming the water for small fish or crustaceans, caught by touch by day or especially at night. They spend much time loafing gregariously on sandbars in the rivers, coasts and lagoons they frequent.
This juvenile black-crowned night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) has survived the winter and is back to where it was born. Shell Beach, California
3eme image d'une scene improbable... apres s'être libérer seul, l iguane a essayé de s' enfuir, mais a été suivis par la couleuvre et rattrapé, de nouveau passif il se laisse de encore saisir... sur la plage de shellbeach à Saint Burin Hydraulique (SBH) crédit photo et remerciement : Jordan Jobert Berry
This World Heritage listed region is stunning to visit. I had to walk out almost a kilometre to get to the water.
You could feel the magic in the air. The light and color and mist from the rough surf produced a such vibrant atmosphere and scene. I felt very fortunate to have captured this to share. A moment of tranquility that becomes you.
D7000 | f/16 | 1/2 sec & 1 sec | ISO 400 | 18mm | 2 exposures blended in photoshop, then double processed the blended image in camera raw.
I grossly miscalculated both timing of our arrival and choice of lens. We were aiming for Pismo Beach, but the city was actually *full*. We ended up parking in the neighboring city a little north of Pismo and hiked to a spot that had a view of Pismo Pier. My 24-70mm didn't get me close enough (these are cropped). Ah well.
Size approx of each shell 1cm.
Superdomain: Neomura
Domain: Eukaryota
(unranked): Unikonta
(unranked): Obazoa
(unranked): Opisthokonta
(unranked) Holozoa
(unranked) Filozoa
Kingdom: Animalia
Subkingdom: Eumetazoa
(unranked): Bilateria
(unranked): Protostomia
Superphylum: Lophotrochozoa
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Bivalvia
Subclass: Autobranchia
Infraclass: Heteroconchia
Subterclass: Euheterodonta
Superorder: Imparidentia
Order: Cardiida
Superfamily: Cardioidea
Family: Cardiidae
Subfamily: Fraginae
Genus: Fragum
Species: F. erugatum