Look­ing for wildlife to pho­to­graph? A recent blog post by Scott Bourne lists his top 7 bird and wildlife pho­tog­ra­phy hotspots in the states.

Read­ing this arti­cle, I real­ized that many of the birds he men­tions to be found in these refuges can also be found here in the San Fran­cis­co bay area. Accord­ing to infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by the Don Edwards Wildlife Pre­serve, the bay area has “30,000 acres of wet­lands, open water, and upland habi­tats, are home to at least 800,000 birds at any giv­en time and to mil­lions dur­ing peak migra­tion”. That link takes you to a com­phre­hen­sive list detail­ing when you might find which birds.

Just a par­tial list of birds we have spot­ted here in Half Moon Bay include:

Barn owls
Pacif­ic Great horned owls
Great blue Herons
Cat­tle egrets
White herons
Green herons
Cor­morants
Less­er mur­res
Oys­ter catch­ers
Snowy plovers
Red tailed hawks
Gold­en eagles
Turkey vul­tures
Kestrels
Kites
Pere­grine fal­cons
Hood­ed ore­oles
Downy wood­peck­ers
Acorn wood­peck­ers

Not to men­tion all the oth­er sea birds, finch­es, hum­ming­birds and oth­er North Amer­i­can vari­eties. It is a wor­thy project to doc­u­ment the birds of the bay area.