Super Bowl Sunday

What do you do on Super Bowl Sunday?  Do you watch the game?  Do you use it as an opportunity for an adventure knowing most people will be at game watching the game?

Brown Pelican -- Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline, Oakland, CA

Sora

I've done both.  Sometimes Jim hosts Super Bowl parties and I go over to his house to watch the game.  I'm more likely to do that if a local team is involved.  We don't have cable at home but we have an HD antennae, so I can watch the World Series, the NBA Finals, major golf tournaments and a number of NFL games.  That's about all there is for sports on regular television anymore.  I'm not all that into watching sports anyway.  I like listening to sports on the radio.

Willet & Marbled Godwit -- Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline, Oakland, CA

One of the great things about summer road trips is finding baseball broadcasts while driving.  I'm a Giants fan, so I'll listen to their games whenever possible.  Padres.  Dodgers.  Angels.  Diamondbacks.  Rockies.  Mariners.  I've listened to all of their broadcasts.  Hanging out at the campsite drinking a beer with the game on while cooking up a little dinner, tough to beat that scenario.

AT&T Ballpark, San Francisco, CA

OK, I'm way off topic.

Sunday was Super Bowl Sunday.  The San Francisco Forty-Niners hosted the Super Bowl down in Santa Clara.  I don't know why they aren't called the Santa Clara Forty-Niners now, their stadium is roughly forty miles from San Francisco.  Whatever.  I headed over to the City to watch the game at a party at my friend's house over there.  I left early thinking the traffic might be bad.  It wasn't.  No problem, that gave me a chance to take some pictures.

Formerly Simpson Bible College, San Francisco, CA

Simpson Back in the Day

I got together with my wife at Simpson Bible College in San Francisco in the mid-eighties.  That's where I met my friend Jim, also.  It was a small college with just over two hundred students.  I stopped by for a few pictures.  I'm not at all into religion anymore (nor is my wife or Jim), but this place is still kind of special.  The entire school and the dorms were in this one building.  It would not be an exaggeration to say this was a tight little community.  The current occupants of the building (the college moved to Redding in the late eighties) have paved over every square inch of the place, but it used to be an attractive campus.  Oh well.  It was still fun to see the old building.

Ocean Beach, San Francisco, CA

I headed out to Ocean Beach before making my way to the Super Bowl party.  We've had wonderful winter weather lately, but that was nowhere in sight on Sunday.  There wasn't a cloud in the sky.  I hate blue skies when taking pictures.  Nothing to be done about it, though.  The Great Highway runs along Ocean Beach and some of it has crumbled into the sea in the last couple of decades.  The dunes I took this picture from extended out much farther toward the ocean thirty years ago,

Man, I'm old.

Mark's Back Yard, San Francisco, CA

Anyway, the Super Bowl party was fun.  I didn't watch much of the game.  It was a fun day, all in all.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline

Neighborhood Critters

January 24, 2016

I feel like I've been neglecting the neighborhood wildlife lately.  It's winter, I should be out collecting those local bird pictures.  I haven't been doing that.

I've been a little under the weather over the last week.  I figured if I wasn't up for a decent day trip I could at least get out and at least make up for a little lost local time.

So, let me introduce you to my neighbors.

Western Gull -- Oakland/Alameda Estuary, Alameda, CA

Bufflehead

I live a block from the Oakland/Alameda Estuary.  As you can imagine, we see a lot of seagulls.  I don't take a lot of pictures of seagulls, though.  They're too damned hard to identify.  I keep my out for easy ones.  Ring-billed gulls.  California gulls.  Western Gulls.  Adult gulls, no juveniles.  I've got no chance with juveniles.

Bufflehead -- Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline, Oakland, CA

Brush Rabbit

Rabbits and ground squirrels are common on the shoreline.  Brush rabbits can be found just about anywhere while black-tailed jackrabbits stick to a particular fenced-in are of the MLK Shoreline.  At night they seem to spread out across the entire fenced-in area, otherwise they tend to stick to the back corner.

Black-tailed Jackrabbit -- Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline, Oakland, CA

What keeps the rabbit population in check?  Poachers, for one.  I've heard stories of shotgun shells being found in the rabbit corner and the population being decimated only to rebound in a few months.  I'm not sure if there's anything to those stories.  Northern harriers are commonly seen in the area, as is the occasional cooper's hawk.  I expect the main cap on the potential rabbit population growth is this particular red-tailed hawk shown in the picture below.  It's rare to visit the area near Arrowhead Marsh in the morning and not see this individual bird, and he/she has been there for at least three years.  I've even seen the bird eating a rabbit in a tree.

Red-tailed Hawk -- Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline, Oakland, CA

Greater White-fronted Goose

Canada geese are always around in winter.  Sometimes a few greater white-fronted geese will stop by as well.  Last year one had an injured foot and stayed for the entire winter.

Canada Goose -- Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline, Oakland, CA

Common Goldeneye

Shorebirds are plentiful on the shoreline.  Like gulls, I tend to avoid shooting shorebirds because they can be difficult to identify.  Some aren't difficult and some are even kind of exciting.  The shoreline is one of the few places one can find a ridgway's rail.  I didn't see any ridgway's rails on Sunday, but I saw a few sora's and even a couple of virginia rails.

Sora -- Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline, Oakland, CA

Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline, Oakland, CA

My favorite inhabitants of the shoreline are the burrowing owls.  It takes a little luck to see one.  They're only around in winter and I've only seen them early in the morning.  They look like large potatoes with big yellow eyes.  They tend to hide behind the burrow mounds so I often can only see their heads.

Burrowing Owl -- Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline, Oakland, CA

Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline, Oakland, CA

Pacific Grove & Seventeen Mile Drive

April 13, 2014

Pongo and I drove out to the coast Sunday for a little R & R.  He's been getting a bit wound up lately, I figured a trip would do him some good.  We saw a  lot of birds, which makes Pongo happy.  He's really into wildlife these days.

Harbor Seal -- Pacific Grove, CA

Pacific Grove, CA

Black Oystercatchers -- Pacific Grove, CA

Pregnant Harbor Seal

Our first stop was Pacific Grove, where we made the obligatory drive along the ocean from the aquarium to Point Pinos.  We saw a number of harbor seal ,others with newborn pups.  Well, I saw them anyway.  Pongo doesn't tend to see animals from a distance.  Dogs don't have the best eyesight, I guess.

Harbor Seals -- Pacific Grove, CA

Point Pinos, Pacific Grove, CA

Wild geese have built a couple of nests near the trails on the rocks at Point Pinos.

Are non-migrating canada geese really wild?

It's that time of year.  We saw a couple of nesting black oystercatchers as well.  These rocks don't seem like the best place for building a nest.  People swarm the rocks.  Dogs, too.  The geese nests I saw are right next to the trails.  Urban geese, I guess.  Do they take their chicks into the ocean from there?  Yikes.  The pond at the golf course across the street seems better to me.  It seems like the goslings would have a tough time scrambling on the rocks out there.

Canada Goose -- Pacific Grove, CA

Surfbirds

After watching surfbirds hopping around on the rocks for a while, we found a different route back to the car that avoided the geese.  Our next stop was the beach at Spanish Bay.  It's a nice stop for us because it's a long beach where Pongo can stretch his legs.  This beach has been covered in washed up seaweed the last couple of times we've visited.  The birds don't seem to mind.

Sanderlings on the Seaweed -- Spanish Bay, Seventeen Mile Drive, CA

Marbled Godwit -- Spanish Bay, Seventeen Mile Drive, CA

Have I mentioned all of the wildflowers we saw on the drive?  It's that time of year.  Purple.  Pink.  Orange.  Yellow.  Pretty much everywhere you look right now you'll find some wildflowers.  It's not a banner year for flowers in California because of the drought, but we got enough rain there in March to give us at least a bit of a show.

Seventeen Mile Drive, CA

Our next stop was Seal Rock.  Pongo wasn't scared of the sea lions this time.  Last time we were here he was overwhelmed by the noise they made.  It was smelly that time, too.  He seemed more curious than scared.  I don't know if he can actually see the sea lions out on the rocks.  He'd give the rocks a good hard stare every time one of the sea lions got worked up out there.

Rocky Point, Big Sur, CA

After Seventeen Mile Drive, we drove down South to Bixby Bridge.  Pongo was pretty tired at this point and we lost the sun in clouds, so this marked the end of the day's adventures.  Pongo did get to see some cows up close.  He wasn't too sure what to make of them.

Rocky Point, Big Sur, CA

Moss Landing

September 1, 2013

Moss Landing is a tiny little town on the Monterey Bay roughly half way between Santa Cruz and Monterey.  It's got a small boat harbor with a restaurant and a couple of shops.  It was a whaling port in its early days.  It might be best known by Bay Area folks as that place near Monterey with the big smoke stacks.  Those belong to the power plant and they dominate the skyline.  Hell, they are the skyline.

California Sea Lions

Wildlife is abundant at Moss Landing.  You don't even have to work to see it.  You can just park your car at the Moss Landing Beach parking lot, stick your head out the window and you'll find you're already in the middle of it.  Above you will be birds, perhaps lots of birds.  In the harbor will be seals and sea lions and sea otters.  There's a beach and sand dunes to explore in the other direction.  I hear it's even more amazing in a kayak.  Next time that's what I'm doing.

Willets and Marbled Godwits

Brown Pelican

I've never seen so many pelicans in one place.  I was seeing brown pelicans in the harbor, but I also saw two large flocks of white pelicans fly overhead and land in the slough area across Highway 1.  That's why I'll need to rent a kayak next time if I haven't already bought one, there's a whole huge area to explore over there in Elkhorn Slough.  I should read up on the seasons for the slough to figure out the best times to visit.

Southern Sea Otters

I came to Moss Landing on the recommendation of a Point Lobos park ranger.  He was telling me about the raft of sea otters he'd seen there a couple of weeks ago.  Sure enough, there was a large clump otters out in the harbor.  I'm guessing there were a bit over two dozen otters in the raft, with a few stragglers here and there in the harbor.  I don't think those guys and gals ever stop eating.  Seemed like a nice way to spend the day to me.

I couldn't find an interesting way to photograph the otters, though.  They were a little too far out for good close ups, but from a distance they're just a bunch of brown blobs.  Maybe I just needed a little more patience than I seemed to have on this trip.  I don't think I ever found that quiet place that comes about when you're out in the wilder areas.

Anise Swallowtail

Even though the otters weren't all that into looking good for the camera, I came across a swallowtail that seemed really into getting its picture taken.  That's one of the prettier butterflies I've seen.  I also saw a school of anchovies.  They looked like wind on the water's surface, but when I got closer I could see that the disturbance in the water was caused by these little fish.