This past March, I found myself on a plane to join my friend and guide Nathan Goldberg of Red Hill Birding, for a week of bird photography in San Diego, California. Given it was still winter at home in Chicago, it took little effort to convince me to join him in sunny southern California.
San Diego is positioned in a unique geographic location for birding, in that it has a variety of habitats all in close proximity to one another. To the west is the Pacific Ocean, followed by dry chaparral (shrubland), oak woodlands, mountains, desert, and everything in between. As Nathan told me: on any given day in the winter, you can start your day in snow up in the mountains and then be surfing at the beach an hour later. It’s the variety of habitats that makes San Diego so welcoming to birdwatchers from across the country, and San Diego County boasts one of the highest bird lists of any county in the United States (only rivaled by Los Angeles County).
Nathan and I made sure to focus early on in the trip on photographing the resident species in San Diego. Below are a variety of species that call the county home, and that many travel to California to see:
Another major photo location in San Diego is at La Jolla Cove. Here you can find nesting Brandt’s Cormorants, and watch them carry nesting material to their partners:
Brown Pelicans are also quite common here, with both adult and immature birds resting on the rocks.
Moving away from the coast, Nathan took me to a wonderful birding hotspot in the county called Santee Lakes. This past winter, a locally rare Lewis’s Woodpecker took up residence and wowed many birdwatchers and photographers:
While watching the woodpecker, we found a pair of Red-crowned Parrots who were excavating a potential nest site. San Diego is home to many escaped parrots which have established themselves as full-time residents due to the nice year-round climate. Truly stunning birds, this species is native to eastern Mexico and are globally Endangered.
Santee Lakes is also well known for its waterfowl, and we were not disappointed – getting close views of Wood Ducks:
Towards the end of the trip, the weather was overcast which helped a lot for hummingbird photography. Nathan knew of some locations we could find naturally perched Anna’s and Allen’s Hummingbirds, and we spent quite a bit of time getting the perfect shot of their glowing gorgets. I truly love hummingbirds, and finding these birds posing so cooperatively on their perches made for some fun photography.
If you’d like to see more photos from this trip, you can head over to the San Diego gallery and check out the various species I did not include in this blog. I look forward to going back to California soon, it seems the birds and photographic opportunities never cease to end!
