I made my regular coffee to go and took Clif Bars for breakfast. We left around 7:00 in the Jeep.

We went to the same two burrowing owls as yesterday morning, and both were out when we arrived. Unfortunately, one flew away as we approached, so we just spent a little time with the one that stayed before moving on. We took our usual driving loop, and I got some great shots of a caspian tern in flight (below left). We also came across a very cooperative great egret (below right).

Our photographer friends G&L-N from Nanaimo, British Columbia, called to ask for directions — their GPS had taken them to a dead end road. I found out where they were and gave them directions to the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center so we could meet them there.

J and I returned to the RV around 10:10 and I downloaded the images I took this morning while cleaning up the RV a little. We left at 10:18 and went ...

To the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center to meet up with G&L-N. We had stopped to visit them in Nanaimo, British Columbia, on Vancouver Island on our way to Alaska last summer and had a great time with them. We left the visitor center and led them ...

To our favorite burrowing owls. G-N was thrilled to be able to photograph the one that was out by the burrow at such a close range. Then we directed them along our driving route, and let them go ahead of us so they'd have first crack at anything we came across. We spent quite a while photographing California brown pelicans in flight as they rounded the breakwater.

We returned to the RV around 1:10 for lunch of ham-and-Swiss sandwiches, leftover baked beans, and cantaloupe. It was nice to visit as we ate.

G-N and I went outside around 2:35 to try to photograph some desert (?) cottontials nearby. They weren't cooperative, so we made our way down to the shore and tried to photograph a large group of black-necked stilts. They weren't too cooperative either.

We returned to the RV and picked up J and L-N, then we all left in our vehicles.

We went to the Red Hill Marina to try to photograph the shore birds. There were lots of black-necked stilts and some American avocets, but they were really skittish and I didn't get any good images.

We returned to the RV around 5:35 and J and I started preparing dinner.

We had dinner of grilled chicken breasts, Rice-A-Roni herbed rice, and Greek salad. The Charles Shaw Chardonnay went well with dinner. We had been planning to have some grilled chicken drumsticks too, but they hadn't thawed before I put them on the grill, and even after cooking them for a long time, the centers weren't cooked. So, we decided to just have the chicken breasts, and that was plenty. G&L-N left around 7:30 to head back up to Palm Springs.

I did the dishes, then downloaded the images I took this afternoon. My mother called, and we all talked for a while. I downselected the images from today in iView, then processed two images from yesterday for the blog.