Did we see the blue-footed booby?

What a beautiful day! Clear and cold at 8 a.m. at Ballona wetlands area, warming up to 75 degrees by the time I left. As you probably know, the blue-footed booby is rare in Southern California. They appeared in September and have not been seen in these numbers since the 1970's. This was my big chance to close out my first year in birding with something special!

We started watching bufflehead ducks in the lagoon, then spotted two Cassin's kingbirds in the trees in gorgeous yellow full color.

cassin's kingbird

On the beach we got close to these royal terns and a million gulls (Heering, California, Western) and lesser scaup.

 Below are a willet and a sanderling running in the surf, and a pair of least sandpipers, the smallest sandpipers in the world.

willet

sanderling

least sandpipers

We saw many grebes including these western and some horned grebes and eared grebes.

 Lucky to see this savannah sparrow.

  Now, you are going to have to just accept that this is a photo of the blue-footed booby!!!!! It was easy to verify through guide Bob's spotter scope--it's right in the center of this photo sitting up straight. Very exciting!

 These brown pelicans are in breeding season shown by the red on the bills.

A great blue heron was hanging out in the channel with a willet.

black-bellied plover

American avocet

I think the avocet was my favorite of the day really. We also saw: dunlin sandpiper, loons, whimbrel, white-crowned sparrows, and black phoebes. Hooray! If this is the last birding of the year, I am a very happy person. :-)