At The Backroads

Gulls Flock at the Rocky Intertidal Zone at Low Tide

The moment we stepped on the shores of San Onofre State Beach yesterday to enjoy the sunset, it was also just like the other day, a beautiful low tide. Again, there are so many exciting things at low tide. The rocky intertidal zone is exposed, allowing the birds to see clearly what they want to feed on, thus a lot of birds usually flock on the shore at low tide. I always love to see them chase the waves, or chase the small sea creatures carried by the wave? But since it was close to sunset, the gulls mostly are just resting on shore.

Gulls on Shore @ Low Tide

San Onofre State Beach is at the very Northern part of San Diego County, thus it is a very quiet beach being far from bigger cities. It is several miles North of Oceanside and maybe just a mile of South of San Clemente border. Most of the beach goers here are mostly surfers, especially at this time of the year where the water is only in the 50s. But I think the surfers like the peacefulness of this beach so they can have this mostly for themselves, their paradise.

Surfers Cleaning Up their Boards

San Onofre State Beach offers a world renowned and historical surf break. This is probably a  surfer’s paradise 360 days of the year. The San Mateo Creek flows just east of the campground outward towards the ocean creating key riparian and wetland habitats which host some rare and even endangered species. There is a 1.5 mile nature trail from the beach to the campground on top of the bluffs which is i.5 mile inland.

Parade of Surfers

Seeing a lot of gulls on shore made me excited for sunset pictures. I had my own imagination, a big congregation of gulls resting on the sand being lit by the setting sun. But little did I know that at sunset, most surfers get out of the water. And each time they get out of the water, this is what happens

1. As the surfer closes his distance to the birds, one by one, the birds started to fly.

2. When the surfer finally crosses the birds congregation, birds would fly almost at the same time

3. Passing some surfers on the water

4. Almost towards the sun

5. And then, the birds would congregate again in another part of the beach, that would make me follow where they are, hoping they would still be there when the sun is much lower in the horizon already.

6. Unfortunately, when I get to them,

they would fly in the opposite direction again :))

And I would walk again where they would land,

it was definitely fun! It was such a lovely and another special day yesterday, kind of chasing or following the birds where they would go.

I did not get my first imagined picture, but then, the birds and the surfers had their own beautiful plan as well

Trackback URI | Comments RSS