Bernardo Bay

Welcome to Bernardo Bay.  The name is rather misleading lately since as you can see it's not very bay-like. this is the southeast end of Lake Hodges and when i first started going here over a decade ago, this is what it looked like.  Back then, when i saw the "no boat launching"  "no swimming" signs i was a little confused.  then in 2004 we had rain, a lot of rain. It rained for weeks straight and this once dry area filled to capacity and beyond.  

And the water stayed for years, two years ago it used to look like this:

this is the same view as above

I have actually been avoiding this hike because it had dried up.  It's rather sad to see.  When you drive down the freeway, you could usually see the lake on either side of the freeway and now, you just see the drought.  I loved coming here to watch all the waterfowl.  Since it appeared to be dry, needless to say there would be no waterfowl. So last week when i arrived i was very surprised and delighted to see this:

It's not a lot, but in some areas it's deeper than others and most importantly, the migrating and resident birds have a place to live and thrive.

this just looks like a puddle, but here's just a small amount of the birds that are in this puddle:

now it may look sad, all these birds scavenging in this small area, but when i arrived this morning, i watched all these birds swim over to this area.  All the Pintails, Green Winged Teals, Wigeons, Coots and Northern Shovelers swam in a straight line and spread out into their groups.  there must be some good eats over in this area :)

this is a close up of one of the many groups of napping Shovelers.   I have never seen so many in one place, there are hundreds of them.

     this area right before the 'pool' is all dry, but there are little rivers throughout the area that the ducks are
     using as little highways to the puddles.

                     
    As i was watching this Egret i noticed the depth of the water in the outer edges is probably only about six inches deep.

                                        this is now a walk-able shore, normally this is all under water

 During my walk last week and today i was very lucky to see a variety of birds. Many i was unable to photograph. either they were too quick or just too far away.  But i was lucky enough to see these  Meadowlarks below. Normally i here them all the time, but rarely get to see them, let alone photograph them.

  I saw this Loggerhead Shrike last week and i could not be more pleased. Even if the picture is bad...

      This Turkey Vulture landed in this tree with two crows, as you can imagine, the crows were not pleased!

                                                     HORRIBLE PICTURES ALERT!!

         these pictures are BAD, but i still had to share because it's not often i get to photograph these guys :)

Female Northern Harrier

Roadrunner (last week)

Roadrunner (today)

i am very glad i decided to hike here last week.  I think of all the birds i would have missed because i assumed the lack of water meant no birds.  I am glad i was wrong! it always amazes me how adaptable animals are.  These birds are used to a full lake, but there are making due and obviously thriving.  the soundtrack of my hikes were the Western Grebes.  They have the sweetest little voices and when there are dozens of them, it is so loud and so beautiful.  there is a good side to the low water level.  This area of the lake usually has a lot of fishing, there are boats going up and down the lake and now with the water level so low, there are no boats and no fishing, so therefore the birds have their peace and privacy.  and in my book, that's always a good thing....