In between storms this early February weekend, I went over the hill to Morro Bay and checked out the Sweet Springs Nature Preserve in Los Osos at the south end of Morro Bay, then drove to the north end to check out the birds at Morro Rock. Sweet Springs is a nice little spot where you don’t have to walk too far to get up onto the bay, and you’re in the middle of a tidal marsh rather than stuck out on a boardwalk like most other sites on the bay, so the birding can be really good there.
Also, the sunrises can be pretty spectacular.
Today the birding at the preserve wasn’t that great, so I hopped back in the truck and drove up to the rock to see what I could see. And I was rewarded with a fair number of common loons, a lot of surf scoters, and a cooperative pair of black oystercatchers. It’s a bit hard to tell from far away, but the female has a browner body than the male. Even harder to tell if you’re far away, but here she was close and I have a pretty long lens, the iris of the female black oystercatcher’s eye has flecking diagonally in front of and below the pupil, making it look like the pupil is irregular shaped and elongate.
And here’s a quartet of common loons, looking every which way:
