San Simeon Pier - Pigeon Guillemot

San Simeon Pier

We just arrived back home in Fort Collins after ten days in California, including four days in Cambria. The trip to the Central California Coast was brief, along with one morning of window shopping in the Cambria, and two afternoons with the grandchildren at San Simeon Bay playing in the sand at William Randolph Hearst State Beach, I got  some birding in while everybody played in the sand. The most notable bird sighting for me were Pigeon Guillemot that were flying in and out of some

Pigeon Guillemot in flight

landing place under the pier. I was fortunate to get one shot with my camera from above on the pier that show a bird's wings extended and the distinctive white marking on the top side of the wings, and the extended red-colored legs. The birds beat their wings rapidly - they don't soar like the more graceful gulls suspended in air by the wind.

Assorted sea birds feasting

While trying to snap shots of the Pigeon Guilemots and Barn Swallows flying in and out of their resting places under the pier, Brown Pelican, assorted gulls, and Brandt's Cormorants made haste of small fish just beyond the off-shore kelp fields - diving pelicans and gulls swooping in to grab anything that didn't make its way into the pelican's mouths - the seascape the forescene to a backdrop of the golden coastline near San Simeon.