Go take a walk!

I had to go to the coast to visit my accountant yesterday. Afterwards I indulged in one of my long time guilty pleasures, an open faced turkey sandwich with hot gravy, mashed potatoes and cranberry at the venerable Encinitas Cafe. On Wonder Bread, no less!

It was delicious, as usual. One of a kind. I had to give them my name and phone number for covid tracing, a first for me.

Afterwards I decided to take a hike down in the San Elijo Lagoon and see what is up. They have been working on their restoration project forever.

I called Ron and Lena, who have been cloistered pretty tight at home and we arranged to meet at the parking lot of the Nature Center. Properly masked of course.

Knowing that the damaged trail would still not be opened (they have been working on it for over a year, interminably) we headed left, clockwise, in order to get a good walk in.

It was pretty uneventful but it still felt good to be out for a brisk walkabout and laugh with my wonderful friends, nonetheless.

Not much fauna around, with the exception of a silhouetted cormorant and a couple egrets.

Lovely day, in any case. Fish were jumping out of the water, everybody was happy. 

I was still rocking the zoom on the camera, the faster 400mm prime is such a beast and I wasn't ready to haul it around yet.

We were amazed when we reached the midpoint of the trail. While there is still a lot of planting work left to be done, the trail is now fixed!

There are two beautiful new bridges open. This allows the walker or birdwatcher to penetrate areas of the lagoon completely unapproachable before.

Hot damn!

The people that were responsible for this did an absolute first rate job. I am elated. How often can you say that about a public project?

Place is great and will only get better when the trails systems are completed.

We walked around, I grabbed some shots. Lots of misses, just like the day before. The 2.8 prime spoils you although even my shots with that looked lousy the other day.

The highlight of the day was seeing a peregrine falcon on a power pole. Not sure I have ever seen one here before, or if so maybe only once.

Didn't have the proper speed locked in, going from stationary to flying can be a trick. But you get the idea, it was a beautiful bird.

I look forward to returning soon and taking some more trails, capturing better images. Next time I bring the heavy artillery. Get outside and take a walk!