Breakaway

Needing a break after a bout with the client from hell, I went down to Santee yesterday to decompress.

Drizzle, cold, cloud cover, I didn't care, I had to get away.

Holy duck sh*t, batman!

I hadn't had the nikkor 400mm 2.8 E out in a while and decided to go for it. It fits with the Nikon D850 like peanut butter and jelly.

There were quite a few birders down there because evidently a rare blackpoll warbler has been hanging around there all week.

I never saw it. A guy I ran into was down from Seattle looking for it.

I saw bullocks and hooded orioles. Equipment worked fine, mostly hand held.

This gent won a new fishing pole for hooking into a tagged catfish.

There were a whole bunch of swifts flying around, including quite a few of these lovely violet green swifts. They fly so darn fast that they are really hard to shoot. 

cliff swallow

I am certainly no expert but this may be a Forster's tern.

I left Santee Lakes after a few trips around the perimeter and headed over to Lindo Lake. Lots of egrets roosting in the eucalyptus and palm trees.

Lindo Lake is pretty in its own way but not exactly the nicest of neighborhoods. Kids getting stoned in their car by the skateboard park wanted to know how much my lens was worth, if it could see people's individual molecules, might be a place a guy could get robbed if he was stupid.

I try not to be.