Blog

Sporadic dispatches from the hinterlands.

Mendocino Coast

We spent New Year's Eve on the Mendocino coast. We stayed a few days in a motel in Fort Bragg, then rang in the new year in a converted lighthouse cottage at Point Cabrillo.

We had hoped for some dramatically stormy weather, but it turned out to be mostly calm and overcast; my new raincoat stayed in the duffel bag. We enjoyed nice walks at Russian Gulch State Park and at Jug Handle State Reserve, and our dining and drinking was North Coast Brewing in Fort Bragg... or else the bottle of champagne we celebrated with in the lighthouse cottage!

Dates: December 27, 2017 to January 1, 2018.

Santa Cruz Island

Santa Cruz Island isn't near Santa Cruz, our town.

We stayed in the campground at Scorpion Landing, just a few minutes' walk from the ocean. The highlight of the campground is the foxes, members of a unique species found only on Santa Cruz Island. Nearly extinct a few decades ago, they have since recovered, and can be found wandering through the campground, searching for food.

The ocean is a little bit warmer in the Channel Islands than it is at home, and we took advantage of it with some snorkeling and kayaking.

Skipper

The flowers in our back yard have been attracting some bees, moths, and other pollinators. I think this moth is a fiery skipper (Hylephila phyleus), in the skipper family of butterflies (Hesperiidae). These butterfies are distinctive because they rest with their forewings vertical and their hind wings flat. This one fluttered around the yard for quite a while, eventually coming to rest on a Salvia flower, with the white wall of our house in the background.. I grabbed a quick shot with the 100mm macro during the one second or so that she sat still (the color suggest that it's a female).

Point Reyes

We went up to Point Reyes for a weekend visit, August 11-13. It was a short trip, but we had some nice long walks, and got a chance to study some peeps (small shorebirds) as they start their migration season.

This time we stayed at The Hideaway, which is in Olema and associated with the Olema Cottages.