I had a great four mile or so walk with Hal and Charlie at Newport's Back Bay hiking/biking/kayaking area.  We took about and hour and a half to meander, photograph and chat.  Next time, we will add a bit of jogging to our exercise/bird watching (which I am quite looking forward to.)

The photo above is of Hal and Charlie.  Charlie saw something in the underbrush...can you spot it?

I also got some great photos of a snowy white egret, just missing him as he had a fish in his mouth and swallowed it down.  We could actually see the fish wiggling on its way down the bird's gullet.

If you have never been to Newport Back Bay, I'd highly recommend it.  And Hal said it wasn't even a good birding day.  But we saw Great White Herons, some sorts of Godwits or similar shorebirds, mallards (including two gorgeous ones that flew right at us) and several hummingbirds.  A real treat to which I intend to return.

That was pretty much it for my day...did some reading and journaling today.  Wrote the beginning of a poem based on Psalm 139's quote, "How precious are your thoughts, O God...if I were to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand."

Seeing the beauty today of even a "blah" day at the bird preserve, I have to agree with the psalmist.  Each bird, each moment, each breath, each individual...a thought of God's.  How precious indeed.

For those interested, a few more photos below.  One of what Hal and Charlie were scoping out.  The other, a snowy egret.  The last, progress of my burn.  Looks kind of like a rorschach test, eh?

Tomorrow I'm going to start research on the Propositions coming up in California's May election...(I think it's May).  So maybe some politics over the weekend but it was awful nice to have a day just to be.

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