Monterey Bay

August 13, 2016

Things are looking up.  It's August.  Autumn is just around the corner.  With that comes birds and the rut and colder, more interesting weather.  The summer doldrums are almost over.

Pelagic Red Crab -- Monterey, CA

Pelagic Red Crab

My son and I went on a whale watching tour on Saturday.  He'd never been out on the open ocean.  This was my third excursion.  My first time was salmon fishing with my grandfather and brother out of Newport, OR.  It was a disaster.  My brother and I both got sick.  We weren't all that into fishing, anyway.  I'm sure we were a big disappointment to my grandfather, and it's something I regret to this day.  I'm still not into fishing, but today I love being out on a boat in the ocean.  I've taken been on two whale watching cruises in the last year, both times the tours were almost cancelled because of rough waters.  I wish I could share this with him.  I'm not sure Grandpa would see the point of looking at animals in the ocean he couldn't catch and eat, but I suspect on some level we'd be able to connect.

Common Murre -- Monterey, CA

Before getting to the boat, we spotted a lot of little red crabs swimming and resting under water on the rocks that line the harbor.  I had never seen these before.  We couldn't figure out if they were crabs or prawns or something else altogether.  I looked them up when I got home.  They are called pelagic red crab, but they're actually related to lobsters.  They're not usually found in Monterey because the water is normally too cold.  They're considered a sign of El Niño.

Humpback Whale -- Monterey Bay, CA

Humpback Whale -- Monterey Bay, CA

Humpback Whale

Those are my two favorite whale photos from Saturday.  That's the same whale, the shots were taken a few seconds apart.  I was zoomed in too close on that first one but I like the look of it.  That second one is easily the best whale photo I've ever taken.  The whale raise his/her tail very high and then went straight down with the tail actually falling over backwards in the descent as see in this little picture to the right.

Humpback Whale -- Monterey Bay, CA

Humpback Whale -- Monterey Bay, CA

We had a number of good looks at whales on Saturday.  I didn't get any shots of the first few, I was frankly caught gawking.  These pictures don't convey the majesty these animals hold in their natural settings.  Get out there and see them for yourself

Monterey Bay, CA

 I'll be honest, my twenty-five year old son enjoyed the whales, but it was the sea lions he liked the best.  Millenials.

Pacific Grove, CA

Monterey, CA

Monterey, CA

Monterey, CA

Soundtrack:

• Ryan Adams -- Love Is Hell

Castle Crags State Park

Camping with My Brother

July 9-10, 2016

 

WARNING:  Pictures of creepy spiders are found below.  Proceed at your own peril.

Also, Sorry to those of you who follow and/or comment on my posts as well as those I normally follow.  I've been having some computer problems at home that make replying to my posts on this site and those I follow difficult. 

Castle Crags State Park, CA

Sam and I met my brother and niece for a one-night camping trip at Castle Crags State Park on Saturday.  It was a nice little trip, although I didn't take a lot of photos.  We ate sketchy camp food and played a couple of games of Pirate Fluxx.  I couldn't hike up to the vista point with Pongo, so we mostly stuck around the campsite and enjoyed each others' company.  It was nice, in that sense.

Castle Crags State Park, CA

Sam, Pongo and I stopped at Colusa National Wildlife Refuge on the way home.  It's at about the halfway point, making it a good spot to stretch our legs and let Pongo have a little adventure.  There's a short hiking trail where he was able to chase an uncountable number of lizard off of the trail.  It's summer so the waterfowl are mostly gone except for a lone greater white-fronted goose that we saw at the pond near the parking lot.

Common Buckeye - Colusa National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Western Tiger Swallowtail

We saw a lot of butterflies.  I chased down a handful of buckeyes but couldn't get a good photo.  They kept their wings open only for a few seconds after landing, which never gave me enough time to find them in the viewfinder, focus and zoom in.  That shot above was the best I could pull enough.  You get the idea, I guess.  They have wonderful eyeball patterns on their wings.

Western Tiger Swallowtail -- Colusa National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Monarch

We saw a large number of white butterflies as well as a few swallowtails and a couple dozen monarchs.  I'm used to seeing monarchs in large numbers at their wintering grounds in Pacific Grove, but this was a bit different.  Here we were seeing them among the milkweed in one of their summer hangouts.  There's even a sign on the trail that notes the area as a designated monarch environment.  Pretty cool.

Monarch -- Colusa National Wildlife Refuge, CA

OK.  Here come the spiders.  I'm only going to post the two creepiest spiders we saw.  I haven't been able to identify them. 

Colusa National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Colusa National Wildlife Refuge, CA

We didn't notice all of the spiders until about half way through the hike, and then they seemed to be everywhere we turned.  I'm not afraid of spiders, but I have to admit I was a little freaked out by the end of that hike.  There were some big and scary-looking arachnids out there!  Sam has always been afraid of spiders, so he was jumping left and right all the way back to the car.

Here's a nice photo of a field of flowers to clear your mind if you've made it this far.

Colusa National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Pinnacles National Park

Camping With Pongo

June 18 & 19, 2016

Pongo and I went camping on Saturday.  I wasn't actually expecting to get a site.  I had no reservations at Pinnacles and figured it would be a busy weekend (it was) but figured at worst we'd spend the afternoon down there.  I've never seen it so busy.  However, we lucked out because a group didn't show up for their weekend reservation so I got the large site for the night.  Pretty sweet.

Pinnacles National Park, CA

Pongo -- Pinnacles National Park, CA

New Camp Stove

There's not a lot to do with a dog at Pinnacles.  We can walk around the campsite and on the road.  That's pretty much it.  Pongo doesn't care.  He loves coming here.  He's become a confident camper as well.  We took a couple of walks around the campground, but mostly I just sat under that big tree while Pongo explored as far as his leash would allow.  The woods beside our campsite were full of little critters (the Pinnacles campground is one of the best places I know of for viewing wildlife) that were making noises all around us at night.  Pongo kept his cool for everything except for what I'm pretty sure was a bobcat screech.  That one got me too, so I didn't blame him for getting a little excited.

California Quail -- Pinnacles National Park, CA

Pinnacles National Park, CA

I spent some time practicing night photography.  I'm starting to get the hang of it.  A little, anyway.

Pinnacles National Park, CA

Turkey Vulture

Pongo had us up at sunrise on Sunday.  That was OK.  We were both snoring by 10:00 Saturday night.  I packed up the site and we drove around for some early morning photos.  Our first stop was at the Vulture Tree.  I don't know if it's actually called that by anyone but me.  It's a dead tree near the visitor center that often has a number of vultures hanging out on it.  The first time I visited Pinnacles--back when it was a national monument--I saw a condor on that tree.  I was excited but I didn't know just how special that was.  I've only seen them from a distance since then.  I saw two on Saturday flying high above us.

Turkey Vulture -- Pinnacles National Park, CA

Pinnacles National Park, CA

Wild Turkey -- Pinnacles National Park, CA

That's pretty much it.  We had breakfast and took a few pictures at Pinnacles Outlook.  We drove home after that.  It was a nice, quiet trip.

California Route 25, San Benito County, CA

Point Lobos State Natural Reserve

It's been a while since I've posted anything.  I kind of went through this last year in spring, as well.  Winter is the best time of year in Northern California for getting outside.  There's snow in the mountains, birds fill the wildlife refuges and the ocean and skies are full of drama.  In spring the clouds go away, the birds go away and while the tourists never go away they are out in bigger numbers.  With all that, I lose my drive to get out.  My wife basically shoved me out the door on Saturday.  "Stop moping and go do somethng," she said, or at least something along those lines.

Whalers' Cove -- Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, CA

It was a hot weekend, so I headed down to Carmel where I figured it would be cooler.  It wasn't just cool, it was downright cold.  Well, for June, anyway.  I went to Point Lobos which was a lot less crowded than normal.  It's never super crowded like Yosemite Valley or anything, but sometimes parking can be a hassle.  That wasn't the case on Saturday.

Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, CA

I took less than 150 photos.  That's not a lot for me.  I was pretty happy with a few of them, though.  Hopefully this was the start of me getting back into the groove again.  We'll see.

The Old Veteran -- Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, CA

Headland Cove, Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, CA

San Luis National Wildlife Refuge

April 16, 2016

It's been a few weeks since I've had an outdoor adventure.  I've been busy with other things.  We spent a weekend in the recording studio and last week I watched the Masters on television.  That's probably my favorite televised sporting event.  A lot of people find golf to be boring to watch, but I like the way good play is slowly and patiently rewarded while one or two mistakes can unravel a run at a major championship.

Western Kingbird -- San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, CA

It's definitely Spring now.  Most of the Winter birds have flown North.  The kingbirds are back, a sure sign that we've switched from Winter birds to Summer birds.  Meadowlarks are year-round inhabitants, but they were a little more conspicuous than normal.

Western Meadowlark -- San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, CA

In fact, a lot of the regular, small animals were easier to see than normal.  I only saw a couple of hawks and a single harrier during the three hours or so that we were there.  It's not unusual to run out of fingers and toes when counting the hawks and harriers at this refuge.  I assume they've followed the ducks North.  Their absence makes life a little easier for the little critters, I guess.

Sheep -- San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Some of the refuge was fenced off for grazing.  This was the only sheep I saw.  I suppose others were probably lying down in the grass.  It was midday, after all.

Killdeer -- San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, CA

Most of the flooded fields were in the process of drying up.  Some of the fields in the back were still flooded.  There weren't a lot of birds there, just a few stragglers including this killdeer.

Tule Elk -- San Luis National Wildlife Reserve, CA

We saw three elk.  Again, probably a bad time of day to see elk.  The ladies always seem to be hard to spot, I suspect they stick to the middle of their large enclosure.  We found a couple of bulls hanging out near the shade of a tree.  This guy was keeping an eye on Pongo who was on a leash beside me while I took photos.  Tough light, but I like his velvety antlers.

Brush Rabbit -- San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, CA

All in all, not the most exciting of trips but it was good to get out.  Pongo and I spent a good chunk of our time on Saturday just hanging out next to the parked car enjoying the peace and quiet.

Soundtrack

• John Coltrane -- Ballads