Here are a bunch of photos from our latest trip to Miramar last week. We lost the first day, owing to flooding which made it impossible to get out of San Francisco, and in any case we found out later that both of the routes into Miramar were also blocked with water. It was still pretty grey when we eventually decided to go for it, so we threw the camping stuff into the car, with every intention of finding ourselves a cabin or a chalet or anything more substantial than a tent. What we hadn’t realised was that Joni had set his heart on sleeping in his tent. So we camped. Luckily the weather took pity on us, and although we didn’t see the sun for three days, it didn’t quite rain either.
The owls were amazing, and unusually this one even sat still and looked quizzically at me as I pointed my camera at it…
Straited heron, more camera-shy than the owls, but still managed a couple of shots…
The pink dots towards the back of this one are spoonbills, a first for me…
Collectively described as a Mexican wave of Plovers?
Now here we are back in the city and today is the first day of a different kind of exodus; the great return to school after three months of summer. I took the first candidate to school at 7.30, the next to a different school at 08.00 and the third to the pre-school department at 10.00. The good news is that even the two who thought they would rather not have gone, came home in positive frames of mind having had a good day, so hopefully they might feel a bit more encouraged to get out of bed tomorrow. When the dust settles, starting times will be at 07.30, 08.00 and 09.00 respectively, but the earlier two will take themselves on bicycles, so eventually I might even be able to do something more useful with myself than tromboning around town.