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Field of View: A San Diego Birding Tour

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To celebrate my mom’s 70th birthday, my family took her out on birding tour extraordinaire―complete with personal guide Claude Edwards, co-founder of the San Diego Bird  Festival and bird expert for the past 40 years. His knowledge was only surpassed by his enthusiasm.

I had no idea what to expect, and was mostly just looking forward to my mom’s reaction given her recent passion for bird watching. The adventure that unfolded opened my eyes to a completely different world. We saw more than 20 different types of birds―from a Red-shouldered Hawk and Black-crowned Night Heron to a Great-tailed Grackle and a Red-winged Blackbird. And a whole host of others.

We visited Mast Community Park in Santee and Lindo Lake in Lakeside. The excursion was facilitated by Tim Schenk of TourGuideTim’s Theme-Based Travel Tours―a complete professional and pleasure doing business with.

All photos by Annie Lane

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Annie Lane

Annie Lane

“If you don't feel it, flee from it. Go where you are celebrated, not merely tolerated.” - Paul F. Davis

Comments

  1. I realize that doing a photo essay doesn’t draw much in the way of comments – I just want you to know that the artistry of your work is certainly appreciated in my household.

    And if you can find way to incorporate key words like “sex”, “marijuana”, “conspiracy” or “Ron Paul” into your photos I’m sure the comments will start flowing, lol.

  2. Great shots Annie, and a great birthday gift to your lovely mom.

    I love all the birds and the phoebes are some of my favorites. They love to take little fly-by dips into our pool.

    • Thanks, Patty! My mom squealed several times that day – the sign of true success.

      I have to agree with you – I think the Say’s Phoebe is my favorite so far.

  3. Annie, Thanks for the nice photos. I’m an avid bird watcher…but leave the photo-taking to others. I hope Claude informed you of various free bird trips with both the San Diego Audubon and Palomar Audubon, as well as two bird sanctuaries that are open to the public (on certain dates/times). Birding to me is “the great escape” from the day-to-day city life, and gives me continual appreciation of the wonder of birds. I hope you continue to try some local field trips. If you need help identifying birds, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology All About Birds is a wonderful web site for that. Oh, and a piece of trivial information…there really are no such birds as “seagulls” (sorry Jonathan L)…. gulls, yes, but they are Western, California, Laughing, Great Black-Backed, Sabine’s, Heermann’s, Mew, Ring-billed, ….. :)

    • I love trivia like that! I had no idea.

      Thanks for the info on the All About Birds website – I passed that and the bit about sanctuaries on to my mom. She’s always looking for new things to do and places to explore.

      One of the coolest parts about this tour was that these parks were public, easily accessible and were so full of avian life. Such an eye opener, and I will definitely being trying out more local spots.

  4. Claude, Saw your story on 7newss San Diego today. Inviting you to watch our Osprey Webcam in Sandpoint Idaho. The birds should be back soon to rebuild their nest. Here is the link. Also left you a facebook message in OTHER message box. http://www.sandpointonline.com/ospreys/

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