San Francisco Bay is hugely popular with birds. One place that they like a lot is the area near to the airport. Birds and planes do not normally mix well but, despite the large numbers of each, they seem to coexist here okay. As the tide goes out, the mudflats that are exposed are a great feeding ground for the birds. They cover all sizes too.
At the top end of the size range are the pelicans. They like to feed in the shallows when the fish are relatively easy pickings. They do stay away from the runways so don’t seem to be a problem (although a pelican would certainly not be a good thing for an airliner). The smaller birds are less of a threat individually but they tend to flock in huge numbers.
I saw a bunch of them flying not too far from the 01 runways. Again, they stay over the mudflats so don’t present a problem. In the opposite direction, there were some rather large flocks circling over the water. While not as large as murmurations of starlings, they were some pretty big groups. They also would move in a similar way with the whole thing looking very fluid from a distance.
Carmel is close enough to us to be a nice day trip. We have been there a few times in the past. Previous vacations have taken us there and it is an easy add-on when going to Monterey or enjoying 17 Mile Drive. This was the first time in a while we went just to enjoy Carmel itself. Most of the time we were wandering around the shops or finding something good to eat. It was not a photo trip per se but I did have the camera with me so here are some shots of buildings that caught my interest while we were there.
