San Diego, Canyon and Boat day!

 I got to San Diego last night, and today was a big day.  We started the day with a walk with the local Audubon Society in Tecolote Canyon, it was wonderful!  Deborah came along and loved it too.  Great guides, great group, easy walk, lots of birds.  Great views of hummingbirds, hawks, scrub jays (a favorite of Deborah), bushtits, wrentits, just a lot of cool stuff.  Here's the checklist

https://ebird.org/checklist/S153297743

I only took one pic from the boat, I sort of forgot:

And here we all are on the doc afterwards!

Then back home for a bit of recuperating, and then we picked up Mom and met Kat and Charlie, and went on a boat!  This kind of boat is called a Duffy, and we went out on Mission Bay, which is calmer.  The combo gave us a nice smooth ride for Mom, and Charlie brought some trains to play with.  I of course brought my binoculars and Kat and I counted just so many great blue herons!  And cormorants.  It was pretty amazing.  Also some sandpipers but I could not ID them, so I didn't enter them.  There was one mystery grebe, which ebird wanted more info about, but I didn't have any more info for them.  I didn't get a pic, and the light was bad, so, sorry ebird!  A highlight for me was a big group of about 40 skimmers!  They are so cool.  Didn't see them skimming, just hanging out.  Hopefully next time!  :-) It was so so wonderful to be out on the water!  Here's the checklist:

https://ebird.org/checklist/S153289672

Then we took Mom back home and headed to Kat's place for kebobs for dinner and some Charlie time, a house tour, and some kitty time.  It was great!  I got to hold a purring cat on my lap!  <3 

Back home to Deborah's, worn out from a wonderful day.