Blog

Sporadic dispatches from the hinterlands.

Sheltering in place

We’ve been staying close to home for quite a while now, due to Covid-19. Luckily, our home area is pretty nice. Yesterday we got out to the Wilder Ranch coast for a morning walk.

The last couple of times I’ve been out there I’ve seen a Peregrine Falcon and a long-tailed weasel. I was hoping to give Joy a chance to see them, and to get some photos. We got lucky with the peregrine; it turned out to be two adults feeding a juvenile, and we got some good looks. They’re very loud birds, and weren’t hard to find. Although we stayed far away, one of the adults made a couple of threatening passes toward us.

We also saw a few other birds out there, including some sparrows that puzzled us a little. We’re not too sure about the three little birds in the triptych. We’ll try to get some expert advice on those.

We didn’t see the weasel.

Opossum

We’ve been stuck at home for a while, waiting out the pandemic. We haven’t had much chance to get out and see wildlife, so this morning some wildlife came to see us.

We don’t normally see opossums out in the daytime but this one seemed to be enjoying the sunshine. Perhaps he’s adapting to the new level of quiet as we humans all shelter in place.

Merced & San Luis National Wildlife Refuges

We made the 2-hour drive out across Pacheco Pass to the San Joaquin Valley to visit Merced Wildlife Refuge this weekend. It’s a wetland area and an important part of the Pacific Flyway, and we’d heard that there are a lot of birds there now. We wanted to get there before all the winter birds migrate away.

It was a good day. We spent a couple of hours driving the 5-mile auto tour route at Merced, and we saw a lot of birds. Our car battery died, but we got a quick jump from AAA. We continued on to San Luis National Wildlife refuge, where we saw fewer birds, but enjoyed the distant tule elk and the varied wetlands. It was dark by the time we headed home, with a lot of shots in the camera and 49 species of birds recorded for the day.

Gazos Beach

For the second weekend in a row, we took a walk on the San Mateo Coast. Last week it was the Cowell-Purisima Trail; this week, we started at Gazos Beach and walked down toward Año Nuevo State Park.

We have such a great stretch of coast near home that we wonder why we go anywhere else.