Early Morning at Lake Merritt v2

Another early morning at my favorite place, Lake Merritt! I saw a nice variety of birds in about 15 minutes… took a quick walk from the light by Comal over to the bird sanctuary and back, saw 11 species, not bad!

Was very excited to see a winter ruddy duck with his blue bill and finally a close-up of a bufflehead with its beautiful iridescent head! Really loving all of these ducks!

I’m still learning my gulls and so when I came home to download, I was surprised to see a ring-billed gull! It’s really does take some time to identify the gulls, especially since the juveniles and seasonal plumage can look really similar…

Birds at Lake Merritt:

Western Grebe	American Crow	Mallard
Ruddy Duck	Western Gull	Ring-Billed Gull*
American Coot	Bufflehead	California Gull
Rock Pigeon	Lesser Scaup

*new sighting!