Saturday we set aside our preparations for floor refinishing and had an excellent day birding down in Monterey county. After some very cooperative shorebirds at Moss Landing State Beach, we checked out Elkhorn Slough by land before going out with Captain Yohn Gideon and Elkhorn Slough Safari to check it out from the water.

The Brown Pelicans are starting to get their breeding plumage on, and they're gorgeous. Most exciting was seeing a Common Murre, who drifted right past the boat in decent. I seem to have recovered from a mysterious "ERROR 99" message on my camera's LCD screen in time to snap a bunch of images. Whew.