Our Tern to Explore the Beach

We found this group of terns on the beach near San Simeon Creek on a recent rainy Sunday.

Santa Margarita Ranch

Here are a few photos from a recent tour of Santa Margarita Ranch.  The bald eagle was watching us from a tree, then flew away, then came back to "check us out".  Photo was hand held with a Canon 400 mm lens.

Burrowing Owl

I found this little guy hiding in a storm drain in Morro Bay.  A local rancher tells me that drainage pipes are a common hiding place for burrowing owls.

Photos are taken with an old Pentax 135-600 mm zoom lens at 600 - it's a really back breaker to carry around - f8, 1/500 sec, ISO 800 at 100 ft.  I wish I had a "crisper" long lens, but can't justify spending $5K or more for a really good lens.

Duck!

It was 75 degrees F (briefly) in Morro Bay yesterday, and the ducks were relaxing in the calm waters of Morro Creek.

Morro Photo Expo - Winning Photos

My Hummingbird at the SLO Botanical Gardens photo took 2nd place in the Morro Photo Expo photo contest.  You can see the other winning pictures at

http://www.morrophotoexpo.com/?p=1848

Morro Photo Expo

Last weekend was "for the birds" at the (almost) annual Morro Photo Expo in Morro Bay.  The theme was nature photography, but workshops covered everything from time-lapse video to butterfly photography.

http://www.morrophotoexpo.com

See some of the photos from the workshops:
 http://www.flickr.com/groups/morrophotoexpo2012/

I attended workshops on flower photography and time-lapse video.  But with birds everywhere in Morro Bay, I couldn't leave without a few bird pictures.

Snowy Egret, Morro Creek

Another session, titled Photographing Critters, gave us a chance to get up close with a variety of lizards, snakes, frogs and bugs.  The photos below were taken with available light using a Pentax 645 medium format 120mm macro lens mounted on a Pentax K-x body.  Exposure was about 1 second at f20; distance was 1 to 2 feet.  These critters were quite still to allow longer time exposure, and quite tolerant of many photographers pointing cameras and flashes into their cute little faces.