Trip Report - San Diego Wildside Weekender

Harbor Seals rest on Casa Beach in La Jolla

We are back from our Wildside Nature Tours San Diego Weekender Tour and although the trip was short there was no shortage of photo opportunities.

Our first stop was photographing the Harbor Seal Pups and soon to be moms at Children’s Pool in La Jolla. Five new pups were born during our tour making eleven in total by the time we left. We watched as seal moms taught there new little ones how to swim.

It was the King tides while we were there, this is the highest and lowest tides of the year, making for spectacular waves crashing over the sea wall.

California Sea Lions

No trip to the California coast is complete without visiting the California Sea Lions in La Jolla. We spent several different days photographing them surfing the high waves and playing on the rocks.

San Diego is rich with a high diversity of bird species and we took advantage of the opportunities to photograph as many different birds as we could. In La Jolla we photographed Brandt’s Cormorants bringing in nesting materials, Brown Pelicans, a variety of gull species, Black Oystercatchers, Royal Terns and we also visited San Elijo Lagoon Ecological Refuge and photographed Osprey, Hummingbirds, Double-Crested Cormorants, Eared Grebes, and the endangered Ridgeway Rail. We also visiting the Marina at Mission Bay and photographed Night Herons and sandpipers.

Seascapes

The California coast is rich with incredible
landscapes. We enjoyed one evening under
the Scripps Memorial Pier creating unique
landscape images using the optical illusions of
the bridge.

Fun times were had by all and we all walked away with incredible images of the wildlife and landscapes of San Diego, CA. We can’t wait until next year to see what images we get.