More Yosemite Goodness

More pictures from the Yosemite trip:

Apparently, there was never the other half to the Half Dome. The peak was created in this lopsided composition...

Check out the smiley face on the hill side:

Wakodahatchee Wetlands

Despite the unpronounceable name, Wakodahatchee Wetlands is simply amazing. It's a small-ish park, with a boardwalk on top of freshwater wetlands, where the animals and the birds have become so used to people that they don't pay any practical attention to them. The park is full of nesting bird colonies, some of which are only a few feet away from boardwalks and walkways. It's impossible to go there and not to come up with a few dozen gorgeous shots.

Case in point: this shot of a trio of young herons fighting over something on their nest:

What are they fighting for? It turns out their mom brought them a nice piece of sushi for dinner:

Now check out how close the photographers are able to come to them!

Another nest, another trio of young birds. These are Wood Storks:

Here is an even younger one with its parent:

Young Anhinga perching:

Tricolored Heron pair:

Another Tricolored:

Adult male Anhinga:

Common Moorhen:

A shy Tricolored Heron:

A nonchalant Anhinga and Moorhen visiting with a sleepy gator:

Bonus shots:

Purple Gallinule

What's a Gallinule? It's a type of a swamp hen (what's a swamp hen?) that is mostly found in the American tropics. Basically, it's a big funny purple chicken. There is a population of them in Florida, which is the northern-most place they dare to go. They come to Florida to breed, and then return to South America for the winter. As the name suggests, it's vivid purple in color, with long yellow legs. As if that was not enough to make it distinctive, it sports is a light blue face shield and a vibrant red/yellow bill - but then you can see for yourself in these pictures!

Despite its apparent heaviness and large size, Purple Gallinule is an expert reed-climber!

Got one!

Mono Lake

Mono Lake lies on the east side of Yosemite National Park, and it's worth a visit all on its own. It's an American, albeit smaller, version of Israel's Dead Sea. Three quarters of a million years old, it lies in a desert-like area and has no outlet into any other body of water. As a result, all of the minerals and salts brought into it stay in it, making it extremely alkaline. And in turn, the salty waters form huge and weird limestone formations called tufas, found almost nowhere else in the world.

Another reason to visit it is its bird life. It is incredible even to a non-birder. To start with, most of California Gulls you see on California coast are born there, in huge nesting colonies on the lake's islands. That's 65,000+ birds. To top that, every few months the lake hosts a gathering of some type or another of migrating bird - usually in numbers that are in order of magnitude larger, many times topping 1.5 million! Just try to imagine that!

We visited during the slow time. The spring migration was done, the colonies not yet fully formed. Everything was quiet and peaceful:





These are the famous tufas:






California Gulls were there, in hundreds if not thousands:






An enterprising pair of Ospreys made a nest on one of the tufa towers, and were hanging around the lake when we visited:






On the other side of the lake, the tufa towers were even more impressive:






Not that Mono Lake is without other wildlife. I saw my first meadowlark there:


And some curious lizards:




And a few other birds:


Savannah Sparrow:


Violet-Green Swallow: