Sunday Morning Was Just Beachy

Sunday, May 3, 2020

Poor Cindy has to work five days a week and can only go play on the weekends. She has been really missing the beach, after seeing and hearing about all my fun. So we decided to head down and play along Morro Bay.  She also wanted to show me a breeding area for the endangered pipping plovers.

We went down to my favorite beach and immediately were blown away by the rising fog. As the sun came up, we saw a fogbow. Cindy had to combine two pictures to capture the view. And Morro Rock finally appeared out of the fog. And then there was the light, making everything more beautiful.

Fogbow by Cindy - she had to combine two pictures to show the actual view

Cindy posing in front of Morro Rock

The view from the beach of the sand dunes and the mountains behind them in the early morning fog

Cindy's picture of me on the beach

I saw lots of art in the beautiful light and changed my camera to the watercolor setting for some of them.

Arrangement by the tide

Just a shell in watercolor mode - loved the purple

Even the purple flowering invasive mustard added beauty when backlighted by the rising sun

 After a few beautiful hours wandering around on the beach and taking lots of pictures, we moved back north to Estero Bluffs State Park. We parked in a big pullout and walked down the partially paved trail after watching kayakers hauling their kayaks down that trail towards the beach. We had to spend the first several minutes trying to capture the beautiful, partially foggy light.

One of at least a few score of pictures I attempted to capture the amazing light -
and this is the landmark for the parking lot that 

We followed a couple of kayakers down to this beach - and saw another fogbow

Male American goldfinch feeding

Song sparrow singing

Tiny beauty dressed in fog droplets -  found this is invasive rose clover and out competes native clovers and grasses

A watercolor modification of a shoreline view as we walked north

The only banded snowy plover of about seven we found - I turned in the band pattern 

Whimbrel taking his crab to shore 

Sanderlings hunting for food along the edge of the incoming tide

The only least sandpiper I saw

Cliff swallows were racing to collect mud and build their nests

View down San Geronimo  Creek towards the beach 

We had intended to only spend a couple of early morning hours on the beach. But we had arrived before sunrise and spent over five hours before we noticed we were starving. But this was the BEST medicine for the isolation blues. And I had three miles on my step meter. Cindy walked over two miles- the longest she has been able to walk in over a year.  

A Visit to Carrizo Plain National Monument

Saturday, April 4, 2020

Cindy had wonderful memories of visiting Carrizo Plain National Monument last year, when it supported a super bloom. She wanted to go back and visit there again for her Saturday outing. We knew it had the public parts closed so there would be relatively few people in the area, with 250,000 acres to spread out in. Indeed, we saw only a few other vehicles before 10:30 A.M. And lest then twenty- five over the course of the day.

Horned lark- one of the abundant species we saw

Common Goldfields (Lasthenia gracilis), interspersed with tidy tips and 

redstem filaree (Erodium cicutarium), an invasive weed

When we got to the closed Visitor Center, we saw three other groups of people, so decided to not walk the small loop trail that Cindy thought she could handle. But the road just outside it, gave us two of our best times. We watched a hawk and a prairie falcon fight repeatedly, as the prairie falcon attempted to chase off the hawk. And we totally enjoyed watching a San Joaquin antelope squirrel feed and pose for us.

The San Joaquin antelope squirrel posing

Cindy caught one of the several skirmishes - the prairie falcon- above - buzzed the hawk sitting on the post and the hawk responded by jumping up, turning over and presenting his claws

The prairie falcon then took a break on a power line post near the car before doing another fly over

We also spent a lot of time looking for Bell's sparrow, which is endemic there. We finally took a side road where Cindy remembered finding then last year and found a fe. I got one to sit close enough to get its's picture. This was a lifer for me.

Bell's Sparrow

We continued to work our way through the  refuge from northwest to southeast, along the Calliente Range, then turned to head towards the Temblor Range, eventually turning back northwest to drive along it. We continued to stop at Cindy's or my whims to take pictures. I had about 700 at the end of the day. Severe editing has about 100 saved.

The area used to hold lots of ranches - these tanks are probably the remains of one ranch

I glimpsed the orange/white pattern of pronghorn antelope and we slowed to get closer to them, stopping repeatedly to take pictures. We think this group of five were probably yearlings as they were very curious and looked young. They came closer to us after we stopped to watch them. We probably spent twenty minutes with them and took a few hundred pictures between us.

These are the fastest land animals in the Americas - can reach speeds of 53 mph

Their large eyes let them see danger from far away

Earlier this morning, when Cindy and I were moving our cars so we could take hers, she decided she could drive and did ALL the driving of at least one hundred twenty-five miles. But I did a lot more of jumping in and out of the car in search of the best picture angles and close-ups. 

Cindy shooting me deciding how to compose a picture.....

.....of San Joaquin milk vetch setting beautiful red seed after its yellow flowers - Soda Lake visible in background in front 

Cindy, preparing to take her main walk of the day - and stopping to read about the San Andreas fault - just before the brown at the top of the screen. It said this area is moving towards San Francisco at the rate of 1.34 inches per year -
in only 10,000 years, it will be there. 

Afternoon clouds made for better landscape pictures - we also had to contend with heat waves

While the winds made dust devils

On the way home, Cindy stopped at Shell Creek Road, a famous wildflower viewing area. It did not disappoint and we spent another hour or so there.

Common Hillside Daisy (Monolopia lanceolata)

Tidy tips (Lavia Platyglossa) with a honeybee visitor

Tidy tips with small lupines

I got really excited - have not found ANY native bees around - but this turned out to be just another syrphid

Baby blue-eyes - one of the rarest of the flowers we saw. 

Coastal Bush Lupine (Lupinus propinquus)

                     

Just as the flowers ran out, we ran into a flock of returning  western kingbirds - we probably saw twenty - fifty

A view near our turnaround point on the road

These forays out to spend time in the outdoors are the BEST preventatives and immune boosters. I hope you too, are getting out. 

          

Cindy's First Outing

March 28, 2020

Cindy had her hip replacement ten days ago.  She is already starting to walk around the kitchen without her walker and often washes the dishes. She is back to working from home part-time. (She will be working from home until this is over. )

Today we went on a driving expedition to Fort Hunter Liggett, where she works.  We took a lot of side roads to look for birds and elk. No elk showed themselves, though. 

We went to a pond on the base and Cindy got out and walked on a gravel road with her walker. We also enjoyed eating a little lunch there. 

I love the long view of lowlands and hills

First year bald eagle

Same bird showing off his huge bill

One of a few huge rock outcroppings

Yellow violets

I can never get enough of the beautiful patterns of the hills and draws

A very cheerful flower that is almost through blooming

Eurasian collared dove

Owl clover

Lupines are makeing huge patches of color

This was one of the only two plants of this species we saw

These were on a shrub but feel like nightshade family plants

Blooming shrub

Another long view

This flower was the size of a fingernail

We explored down a dirt road to find this relic

One of two shrikes I saw

A western meadowlark refusing to look at me

The William Randal Hurst Hacienda - of course we could not see the inside today

A single great-tailed grackle  at the pond- kind of unexpected to see one by itself

Ground squirrels were abundant

A very old California sycamore

On the personal front, we are hunkering down as the Corvid-19 infections continue to increase in our area. We don't yet know how extensive the infections will be, but they are predicted to get quite high. I am the only person going around people to do our shopping.  It takes several visits to get everything on our list since there are a lot of missing goods. Albertsons is disinfecting the carts and the belts between customers and had the floor marked for when we stand in line so we stay apart. And everybody is being careful to wait for another person to leave an area before moving into it. California county and state leaders are managing it to the best of their ability without much help from the federal government. 

I'm grateful that I got to come help Cindy.  I am not allowed back on the refuge until this is over so I'm homeless. Cindy says I can stay here even after she is all well.