Point Reyes National Seashore

September 13, 2016

California Quail

My favorite hike of the year is the early fall trek through the elk reserve to Tomales Point at Point Reyes.  The elk are in rut and, unlike in a zoo, there are no fences.  The elk are in their natural environment (basically).  It can be an amazing experience when the cards line up right.  This hike has become an annual rite for me.

Black-tailed Deer -- Point Reyes National Reserve, CA

I started at the visitor's station.  I don't usually stop there, but I need some stickers for my new computer.  I got a nice little sticker and a magnet for my car.

Tule Elk -- Point Reyes National Seashore, CA

Point Reyes National Seashore, CA

It was a bright, sunny day in the Bay Area but foggy and cold out on the Point.  That's not unusual.  In fact, that's part of the charm of Point Reyes.  It always seems to be foggy and cold.  My kind of weather.  The fog burned off, for the most part, but it stayed mostly cloudy and dark for the day.

Tule Elk -- Point Reyes National Seashore, CA

Tule Elk -- Point Reyes National Seashore, CA

On the way out to the pond (roughly three miles) I was afraid I was going to get skunked.  I had seen a couple of groups of elk from a distance, but nothing up close.  I've never been skunked on this hike before, but counting on the pond to fill my photo card had me nervous.  At this time of year, it's normal for a group of bachelors to hang out at the pond.  In the tule elk world, if you're a bull elk you're either a winner or a loser.  There's not much in between.  You're either Fonzie or Potsie, there's nothing in between.

Tule Elk -- Point Reyes National Seashore, CA

Tule Elk -- Point Reyes National Seashore, CA

Tule Elk -- Point Reyes National Seashore, CA

Pictures don't do these animals justice.  I love stopping here at the pond and watching these animals.  They are hopped up on testosterone (or whatever it is that drives the male elk urges) but there is always an amazing peace that fills this little valley.  Maybe I'm just imagining it, but it feels real, year after year.  God bless these hairy, horny creatures.

Tule Elk -- Point Reyes National Seashore, CA

Tule Elk -- Point Reyes National Seashore, CA

Black-tailed Deer -- Point Reyes National Seashore, CA

Point Reyes National Seashore, CA

Overall, I saw eight separate harems of elk.  I've never seen that many.  I suspect they'll break up into smaller groups over the next few weeks, but I could be wrong.

Tule Elk -- Point Reyes National Seashore, CA

Tule Elk -- Point Reyes National Seashore, CA

Soundtrack:

• Wilco -- Schmilco

Pacific Grove Golf Links

Golf!

Black-tailed Fawns

Saturday Sam and I joined Jim and his father Jim, Sr. for a round at one of out favorite golf courses: Pacific Grove Golf Links.  It's a municipal track on Point Pinos.  I've seen it described as one of the best municipal golf course in the country, and you won't get an argument from me.  Harding Park and the Presidio in San Francisco offer more difficult golf challenges, but Point Pinos is one of the Pacific Coasts most spectacular locations.  What Pacific Grove Golf Links lacks in challenge--from the tips it's a par 70 at 5,732 yards with a rating/slope of 67.9/113--it makes up for in scenic beauty matched only by the Monterey Peninsula's finest course like Pebble Beach and Cypress Point.

Black-tailed Deer --  Pacific Grove Golf Links, CA

You cannot play a round of golf at Pacific Grove without encountering deer.  These are urban deer who are accustomed to being around people.  That makes for some nice opportunities for photographs without even working for them.

Pacific Grove Golf Links, CA

Black-tailed Deer

There's nothing special about the front nine.  The holes are packed tightly into a few block of housing real estate.  I do not like housing development courses, but Pacific Grove isn't that kind of course.  It predates that awful approach to building golf courses.  While the front nine routes through real estate land, few houses actually line the course.  The course borders are often streets rather than back yards.  The back yards that do line the course never seem to come into play.  Well, except for one particular back yard that juts into the course at a hard right angle.  It shouldn't be in play if you're hitting the ball right, but the hole isn't visible for a lot of approach shots on this particular par five so that nasty corner comes into play more than it probably should.

Pacific Grove Golf Links, CA

This course is all about the back nine.  These holes are all out on the point, unprotected from the elements.  The ocean can be seen and the wind elements felt and heard on every fairway.  The holes wind through the dunes which will come into play on wayward shots.  That's the kind of sand you don'tr want to be in.  It is heavy and unforgiving.

Pacific Grove Golf Links, CA

Pacific Grove Golf Links, CA

Pacific Grove Golf Links, CA

The back nine surrounds the Point Pinos Lighthouse on all sides.  It's a cute little lighthouse that makes a nice centerpiece for the dune holes.  How many golf courses have their own functioning lighthouse?  Ha.  I thought of one other: Harbor Town in South Carolina.  Never been there, but that's a course I'd sure like to play.

Pacific Grove Golf Links, CA

Sam and I had planned to go whale watching after the round of golf, but the excursion was cancelled due to high winds and surf.  That was a bummer.  I took Sam to Moss Landing instead to see the raft of sea otters.  Not as dramatic as whales, but still pretty cool.

Sea Otter -- Moss Landing, CA

Sea Otter -- Moss Landing, CA

Sea Otter -- Moss Landing, CA

We saw more brown pelicans than I've ever seen in one place before.  It's hard not to like pelicans.  They look so awkward but sometimes I wonder if they don't take themselves a little less serious than most birds.  We also saw a golden eagle on the other side of 101.  That made for a pretty good day of both golf and animal sightings.

Brown Pelican -- Moss Landing, CA

Brown Pelican -- Moss Landing, CA

San Luis National Wildlife Refuge

Pongo Gets Back in the Navigator's Seat

July 26, 2015

It's been over a month since I've taken Pongo out on the road.  I would have loved to take him on the road trip with me, but National Parks don't tend to be friendly to dogs.  There are a few exceptions.  The South Rim of the Grand Canyon, for instance, has a very long paved trail right along the edge of the canyon and dogs can walk the entirety of it.  That's the exception, though.

Texas Burger, Gustine, CA

Pongo

We stopped in Gustine for gas and grub.  Texas Burger has become our regular stop on this drive.  It has a walk up counter outside so Pongo doesn't have to wait in the car.  Their burgers are OK.  Pongo likes the fries.

If it was winter I'd have tried to hit both the Merced and San Luis wildlife refuges.  Merced is probably even better for  birds, but in the summer it's mostly a big field with blackbirds and sparrows.  San Luis always has the elk reserve if the birds aren't around.  We see more cows on the drive to the Merced complex, which is a big bonus for Pongo.  He loves seeing those cows.

Ash-throated Flycatcher -- San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, CA

We saw a couple of deer in the underbrush.  Pongo didn't see them until they ran.  They made an awful lot of noise.  He thought that was exciting.  I was surprised at how nervous they seemed by the presence of our car.  I guess I'm used to the urbanized deer in the Bay Area and Monterey.

Black-tailed Deer -- San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, CA

We got a few good looks at the tule elk in the reserve.  Sometimes the elk are too deep in the interior to get any pictures.  There were a couple of groups of males near the perimeter yesterday.  It looks like they've shed most of the velvet from their antlers.  Soon they'll be pointing those things at one another as they try to woo the ladies.

Tule Elk -- San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Tule Elk -- San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Tule Elk -- San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Bixby Bridge

You Can't See a Dream

January 18, 2015

I was thinking of doing a series on Pacific Coast bridges in my other blog and realized I don't have any photos of Bixby Bridge in my collection, so I decided I needed to fix that before proceeding with that series.  I set out to rectify that yesterday.

Great Egret & Brandt's Cormorant -- Pacific Grove, CA

Great Egret

I got off to a late start, arriving in Pacific Grove around 3:00 in the afternoon.  I'd have time to drive along the bay and hit the butterfly sanctuary before heading down to Bixby Bridge, which is about fifteen miles South of Carmel.  Fog was kind of settling in over the town as I arrived.  It wasn't enough to make the pictures particularly moody, unfortunately.

 Pacific Grove, CA

The butterfly sanctuary turned out to be a bummer for a couple of reasons.  First, there weren't many many butterflies there.  Monsanto has been a pretty good job of killing them off with its Round Up weed killer.  Monarchs are fussy little things that feed almost exclusively on milkweed, which Round Up is very effectively killing off across the country.  As of last year, the butterfly numbers were down ninety percent from twenty years ago.  This year's count is 16,300, which I think is up from last year but still very far below the six figure counts of the past.

Monarchs -- Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary, Pacific Grove, CA

The second bummer was that I broke my 250mm lens.  Well, it still kind of works.  My tripod fell over while I was setting up for a shot earlier in the day and discovered in the grove that the auto focus no longer works on that lens.  It's the cheaper of my two lenses so if one was going to break I'm glad it was that one.  There's some comfort there, I guess.  I could have done without that, though.

 Black-tailed Deer -- Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary, Pacific Grove, CA

After visiting the butterfly grove, I headed down to Bixby Bridge.

Big Sur, CA

How many bridges have songs written about them?  More than I'm aware of, I suspect.  Death Cab for Cutie's "Bixby Canyon Bridge" is one of my favorites of theirs.  It tells something of a story, the writer's disappointment with not finding the soul of Jack Kerouac beneath the bridge.  Sometimes we build things up and can't help but be disappointed when we encounter the reality of these things.

Bixby Bridge, Big Sur, CA

Bixby Bridge, Big Sur, CA

Rainbow Beach, Big Sur, CA