Wildlife photography

I am not sure if my day at the Salton Sea was bird watching or camera testing. Of course I also stopped at Salvation Mountain but the trip was planned to visit the State Recreation Area and the Sonny Bono National Wildlife Refuge.
I hadn’t had an opportunity to use my long lens very much so the 75-300 lens was on the camera most of the time as I took pictures of the wildlife. I also wanted to get pictures of birds in flight. Of course there were many pictures that will not see the light of day but for the most part I was happy with the work.
First I use the Sport setting on the camera which gave fast shutter speed and continuous shooting. I worried about the focusing but it was good in most shots. As is always the case the animals always just seemed to be further away that you wanted so cropping was necessary to get the close-up I wanted. There were large flocks of Black-necked stilts that were fun to watch and attempt to photograph. You could never get very close before they would fly away and they flew as a flock almost in formation. They never seemed to fly to a spot but would circle around as one large group.
It was late in the season so many of the snow geese were gone but some of the ducks were preparing to nest. At the Wildlife Refuge I did see the burrowing owl. Again at great distance but did get a reasonable shot of two sitting by their burrow.