For our 31st anniversary, Dragon_Lady and I chose to indulge our photography, foodie appetites and enjoy a part of California we had not explored before. As much as we haunt the San Gabriels, we had never gotten south to Cleveland National park east of San Diego and home to the famous Palomar Observatory. We went to a lake near Julian. Lake Cuyamaca. Lots of Indian names up there.

We had such a successful trip we enjoy an embarrassment of images. Several distinct subjects, this is just the first. We also have an Orchid Nursery, a trail in an area inhabited for 10,000 years and the Sunset Cliffs of San Diego to process. Whew! All that in 48 whirlwind hours.

The conditions were less than ideal what with a monsoon track of clouds and a slight threat of rain. That stole away sunrise/sunset opportunities but granted us excellent light for macro and wildlife images even at high noon which is ordinarily pretty ugly.

The following bird images were shot on a Canon 7DII, with a 400mm 5.6 lens, the flowers with a Canon 60mm 2.8 macro.

“In Flight” is always my favorite way to photo a bird

Swimming to get some feed the rest were getting

Inseparable pals

The alpha goose and his bro in the background