Leon Turnbull Photography

On Saturday, we went out hiking to Chimney Rock at Point Reyes Natl. Seashore. There is a short hike to an elephant seal overlook. It is not the time of year to see elephant seals; a ranger told us that in the spring there are up to 1500 seals here (I definitely must return to see that). Anyway, we did happen to see a couple of male seals here. One was just laying on the beach sleeping. My wife thought he was dead. It turned out that was definitely not the case, because this other guy came swimming up to the beach while we were at the overlook, making a heckuva lot of noise along the way. He slowly swam up to the beach, which promptly woke up the other one, who tried to scamper away from it. It is funny to watch these creatures flop about on the land. It is also funny that they are so bad at sharing. It is a darn big beach. You would think that it would be big enough to comfortably allow two elephant seals to both take a nap. Anyway, they both ended up getting back in the water, and swam away. We were definitely very fortunate to witness these two seals in “action”. This photo was taken with my 100-400mm lens with a 1.4x extender.

We just returned from a great weekend trip to Point Reyes, near San Francisco. It was so nice to get away from the heat for awhile in Sacramento. We saw quite a bit of wildlife on the weekend there (stay tuned for more pictures), but certainly the most wild and crazy thing we saw was this skunk on McClures Beach! I have never in all my years seen a skunk on the beach. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a skunk in the wild before.

Anyway, after work on Friday we drove on over to the coast, got dinner, checked into our lodge, then headed for McClures Beach for sunset. We had the entire beach to ourselves (except for the seagulls and this little critter). Awesome. I headed on down to the south side of the beach to find a photo op. I had put my camera bag down in the sand, then went down closer to the ocean to see if I could find a good composition that I wanted for a photo. I turned around and there was this skunk right by my camera bag! Where the heck did this thing come from??? He was paying absolutely no attention to me. It seemed like he didn’t even notice me the entire time. He continued on by my camera bag, continuing on down the beach, sniffing the sand, looking for food. I went back and collected my camera, and started taking photos of it as he meandered down the beach.

Now I had a dilemna. It was getting close to sunset, and I wanted to get some photos before the sun had set. But Mr. Skunk (or Mrs. Skunk?) was continuing on up the beach right where my wife and kids were playing in the sand. They were far up the beach, and could not see it yet. I was afraid they wouldn’t notice it in time, and when the skunk got up to them, the kids would freak out, and the skunk would freak out, and then you know what would happen. Phew! I didn’t want to have to deal with any extra smelly kids this evening. So I left my camera (the seagulls were watching over it for me), and ran down the beach in my bare feet (going wide around the skunk). I got back to my family, warned them of the skunk coming, told them not go up and pet it or anything, then ran back down the beach to my camera, to take my sunset photos. Man, was that ever tiring! But what a fun evening!

This is not a great super sharp shot or anything, but it is an interesting one of a flycatcher with a dragonfly in its mouth.

At least I think it is a flycatcher. I’m pretty sure. I’m not much of a bird watcher so I don’t know all the bird names. Especially the little ones. Oh, I know what an eagle looks like. Or a crow, or a pelican, or a sea gull, or a vulture, or a goose. I even know some of the little ones, such as a robin, or a hummingbird. Don’t ask me what a dowitcher is. Actually, you can now cuz I just looked it up. Anyway, this is a flycatcher. It has a dragonfly in its mouth. I don’t know what type of flycatcher it is. That would be quite beyond me. But if there are any experts out there, feel free to chip in.

This is not a part of the main Horsetail Falls. It is what I call Lower Horsetail Falls, a really nice slide along Pyramid Creek about 40 ft. high, and is easily accessible along the trail up to Horsetail Falls. I used my 17-40mm lens for this shot, but it would have been nice to have a 10-22mm for this shot. 17mm was just not quite wide enough to get everything in the frame that I wanted to. Still though, I rather like this photo.

Well, I didn’t feel like going on a big hike this weekend, so instead I thought that I would go somewhere close where I could try out my new 100-400L lens and shoot some birds. I almost did not get up. I did not sleep well the previous night, and I turned off my alarm around 1AM in order to sleep in. But I woke up at 5:30AM anyway, despite no alarm, and decided to just get up and go.

Folsom Lake was my choice, by the old Salmon Falls bridge. I like this location for one main reason: you don’t have to pay. Most areas around Folsom Lake you need to pay to get into. I don’t mind doing that every once in awhile, but certainly not all the time. In my opinion, state parks should be free to get into, like provincial parks are in Canada. End rant. Anyway, it is a nice area here along the American River. And as I found out, pretty darn good for bird watching too. There were, as expected, lots of Canadian geese around and also plenty of ducks. I did take a couple photos of the ducks but none of the geese. I was looking for more interesting birds than geese. I did find more interesting birds along the river, including this GBH. I was trying to not disturb the heron and still get close enough for a picture. I was not really very close to the bird at all, and he still flew off. But I was able to get this shot of him before he left. This was taken at 400mm from a long distance away, and is cropped quite a bit.

After a very enjoyable morning of shooting birds, I think I realize that I need an even bigger lens than 400mm. No, I am not going to buy another lens. But I think if I put the 100-400mm on the 20D instead of the 5D, and also put on the 1.4x extender, I would get an effective focal length of 1200mm. I’m sure it won’t be as sharp as this image though. But I think I may try that next time. Those birds don’t let you get very close to them at all, that’s for sure.

In other news, the level of the lake is extremely low already this year. It is much lower than at the same time of year last year. I remember that the Salmon Falls bridge was not visible until the end of August last year, but it is already completely showing in July this year. Pretty scary. We really really need a big winter of rain and snow this year.