Moss Landing and Elkhorn Slough – A Photo Essay
It was a lovely day at Moss Landing and Elkhorn Slough last Saturday, 17 November…
Sea Otter & pup, born this same day!
It was a lovely day at Moss Landing and Elkhorn Slough last Saturday, 17 November…
Sea Otter & pup, born this same day!
Oh dear, this report is so late as to be useless, but here goes anyways…. About a month(!!) ago, Sarah & I had a lovely walk on the bluffs above Pillar Point near Princeton-by-the-Sea, a small fishing community about an hour south of San Francisco.
We stopped for lunch at the take-out counter at Barbara’s Fish Trap, which had the longest line I’ve ever seen them have – by the time we got to the window, there were 25 people lined up behind us! After some yummy fish & chips, we drove south to Half Moon Bay to get some pumpkins. By drove, I mean “sat in a car at a snail’s pace.” Unbeknownst to us, this was the Pumpkin Festival weekend, and everyone in the bay area seemed to be on Half Moon Bay’s roads.
Farmer Bob’s Pumpkin Farm
I decided I hadn’t had enough birding after last Sunday’s morning walk at Lake Merced, so after picking Sarah up at our place, we headed down the peninsula. After a tasty dim sum lunch at Joy Luck Place in San Mateo, we went to Shoreline at Mountain View Park. This was Sarah’s first time at this nice bay-side park, and the birding proved to be pretty good.
Last Sunday morning I birded with a few other folks, led by Robbie, my ornithology instructor Joe’s partner. Due to some email problems, I parked on the wrong side of the concrete bridge on the south end of Lake Merced, but soon found the group on the west side.
Gulls on Lake Merced
Saturday was the second-to-last field trip w/my Field Ornithology class before the semester ends in December, and it was a good one. I’d never birded Coyote Point before, despite driving by it hundreds of times on the way home from the office, and I was looking forward to exploring a new area along the bay. After a very confusing drive in (road construction near Coyote Point has made it nearly impossible to find if you don’t know where you’re going!), our group met up and headed out at 9am under threatening skies.
Turkey Vulture
Last Sunday (yikes, a week ago now!), Sarah & I spent a lovely day in Point Reyes on an uncharacteristically summery November day.
Saturday was another nice Field Ornithology field trip lead by our instructor, Joe Morlan. We met up across from the nearly-done-looking California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park and started out birding the Rhododendron Dell.
Red-shouldered Hawk
This was my first class in 3 weeks, having been unable to attend the previous two, and it was good to be back!
This cute owl was found by our friends Deb & Terry in a tree across from their house in SF’s Bernal Heights neighborhood. It would be a happier sighting if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s been there for a couple of days in decidedly non-burrowing-owl-habitat (in my experience, they rarely perch at all,…
Again, many thanks to classmate Elisabeth for providing her notes & permission to reproduce them here, as I was out on a medical on Oct 31!