This weekend I drove over the Cuesta grade (the name means “slope” in Spanish, so I drove over “the slope grade”) from Atascadero to get to Los Osos to do some birding. I hit all the standard spots: Turri Road (Grasshopper Sparrows singing everywhere but invisible, Western Meadowlarks everywhere, and a few Tree Swallows); Turri Road tidal ponds (looking for the Lesser Yellowlegs but all I found was a pair of Greater Yellowlegs; and a reasonably close look at an Anna’s Hummingbird); Sweet Springs (dozens of swallows, dozens of ducks, nearly a dozen Dark-eyed Juncos, and your standard assortment of birds).
What stood out for me today was how close some of the sparrows let me get. It’s great to have a long lens so you can get reasonable photos of distant birds, but when the distant birds let you get close, you can really get some nice detail in the photos. I was particularly pleased by how close the Dark-eyed Juncos allowed me to approach; usually they’re very flighty birds. (BTW, the word “junco” comes from the Spanish word junco, meaning reed; the same Latin root (iuncus) gives us the French jonquille.)
Here’s a little gallery.
