Out to Point Reyes for an early morning at Abbotts Lagoon — an easy, flat trail through coastal scrub and dunes to the beach, and one of the most reliable wildlife walks on the peninsula. The 70-300 stayed on the camera the whole way; nearly everything here found me rather than the other way round.
The first stretch through the scrub was busy from the start — brush rabbits at the trail edge, blackbirds calling from the bushes, and the small birds keeping constant watch from the tops.
Down at the water the bigger birds took over: a Great Egret working the shallows and the first of several Great Blue Herons, with lupins holding the dunes together behind them.
Out on the beach, more by-the-wind sailors — the same Velella velella that covered Rodeo Beach a couple of weeks earlier, still coming ashore up and down the coast.
The herons were the stars of the morning, though — patient, close, and completely unbothered.
Heading back: a pair of Columbian black-tailed deer on the hillside, a look back at the Pacific, and a last run of wildflowers and grasses — Blue Dicks, harestail grass, and what I think is a cornflower — with a Song Sparrow and one more Red-winged Blackbird, this one on a pond completely carpeted in Azolla fern.
Three easy miles, and barely a dull frame among them. Abbotts Lagoon earns its reputation.
Brian Smith's Photos 
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