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Walkway At Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve
This is a great area simply because you have public access to six excellent wildlife locations centered within the Huntington Beach and San Diego urban areas. All are well organized and prolific between December and January. Although the major attraction is the breeding Pacific Brown Pelican, opportunities abound to capture a myriad of shore birds or simply practise flight shots.
Huntington Beach We visited Huntington Beach first, camping at the Huntington By The Sea RV Resort. The centerpiece for this location is the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve. Although it is a large area with an excellent system of trails, we tended to stay close to the walkway shown above since carrying heavy equipment for long distances can be quite an onerous task. This is an early morning site and provides a significant variety of birds if you are patient. It is definitely a great place to meet other photographers. We generally pack up and head to the Upper Huntington Bay Ecological Reserve by ten o'clock, especially if the tide is coming in. There is a fresh water inlet next to the main parking lot where birds congregate to drink and rest. Directly across is a sandy beach that attracts quite a variety of shore birds. In the later afternoon, a good place to practise flight shots is the City Pier as Western Gull or Heermann's Gull constantly mooch scraps from the fisherman. If you want a change, another good late afternoon or evening location is the San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary. Again, it sports endless trails but we liked to sit at Pool 1 and take advantage of the evening light. It's a great place for Black-Necked Stilt. All the above sites require a longer lens, a good choice being 500mm with a 1.4X extender (the exception is the Pier where a 70-200mm is more than adequate with a flash extender for fill). The results of our visit to this area can be seen in Gallery 20.
San Diego It's now less than three hours to get settled in the San Diego area. As this is a bustling urban center where traffic noise seems to infest every camping location, we would suggest that you try the RV site at Santee Lakes as it is quiet and provides easy access via Highway 52 to the La Jolla area where all the action is at. It's best to be at the Cove Cliffs by day break as parking can be problematic (the upper hill provides free three hour parking which is more than enough time for this site).
Cove Cliffs At La Jolla
You will see a wooden viewing platform from the road (not shown in the upper right of the above picture). This is bypassed by most photographers who generally move down on the upper cliff to position for behavior or portrait shots. Moving lower provides great access for flight shots as the birds return from feeding to preen and rest. As it can become quite cramped, we generally go with a mission in mind and position accordingly. However, wind, light and the physical number of birds will dictate what you can achieve so be prepared to change your plan. As you are on the outskirts of the San Diego La Jolla Underwater Park (actually an ecological reserve), we recommend walking to the Children's Pool to spend some time trying to photograph Harbour Seal as they return in the surf after feeding to bask in the sand.
An good afternoon site is at nearby La Jolla Shores Beach. You need a low tide and somewhat overcast conditions for good results. Parking is free at the public beach. We walk toward the Scripps Institute Of Oceanography (you can't miss their pier) and continue across the rocks to the next bay. The shore birds here are easy to approach as they are used to the crowds that walk the beach.
A great alternate afternoon location for ducks is the Santee Lakes Recreation Preserve, especially on the west side of Lake 5. It's best to buy a twenty pound bag of "scratch" from a pet food store for bait. We would sit at the waters edge and wait for ducks to be attracted to feeders on the the opposite shore. As they finished, simply throwing a little seed in the air was enough to bring a deluge across to our position. This is great fun and affords ample opportunity to practise flight shots on birds that would otherwise be more difficult to photograph such as Wood Duck, Ring-Necked Duck and American Widgeon. You can see the results of our visit to this area in Gallery 21.