Is there anything prettier then the "Stars and Stripes" unfurling in an ocean breeze?

I love photographing critters.  Do you know what this is?  Have you ever seen one?  Come hiking with me at Rancho San Antonio and discover one of these, the Western Skink.  They are serpentine in their gait.  More snake like then using their feet.  As Skinks get older, they lose the blueness of their tails.  This sounds like a Skink Tale to me.

Shot with my tiny Canon P&S camera, only 12 mega pixels but it has a 10X zoom which is great for critter catching.

The above two birds are fisherman, both are "Black Crowned Night Herons" the top one being a "juvenile."

What is this all about?  A trip to San Francisco, that's what it is all about.

This trip actually started out as a quest for the "Parrots of Telegraph Hill" with a side trip to the Exploratorium.  In between, photography of seals and birds.

The seals and diving pelicans were on Fisherman's Wharf and the birds and turtles in a pond at the Palace of Fine Arts, next door to the Exploratorium.

This shot was from about as far away as you can imagine.  I'm posting it as proof that we did see a parrot albeit a fuzzy one.  It's shape is recognizable so it counts as a sighting.  This parrot was so far away that it was a rough guess whether it was a parrot or not.  Only after looking at the digital image did we know for sure.

These birds get mixed reviews in San Francisco.  Since they are immigrants, without legal papers, some locals feel they are not welcome.  Irrespective, it appears they are about to be as permanent as Coit Tower and possibly as big a tourist draw, especially after the movie, somewhat documentary, on them a few years back, "The Parrots of Telegraph Hill" released also as a DVD

The two following photos are indeed portrayed correctly.  They do not need to be rotated.  This is what pelicans do after spotting fish.

This is a Great Blue Heron.  To me, since his colors are a little less then what I am used to seeing, I am guessing that he is an emerging adult, a teenager so to speak.

Anatomically correct statues at the Palace of Fine Arts, placed at the very top of the Palace.  Who would have ever thought?

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