Point Lobos, another photo essay

(I’m rather behind on editing photos, reviewing restaurants, etc etc., so I’m going with minimal text on my birding reports for the time being!)

Sarah & I visited Point Lobos State Reserve, one of our favorite places on the planet, last Sunday, 11/18, and as always, had a lovely time, even though conditions didn’t permit much in the way of great photography.

View from our hotel room (w/a 420mm lens, anyways!)

After breakfast we stopped by the Pacific Grove Monarch Butterfly Reserve, where many thousands of Monarchs spend the winter. It was early in the season, though, and just a few clumps were visible:

 

Monarch Butterflies

 

An appropriate bench for the Monarch Preserve!

 

Next we drove to Carmel River State Beach , where many interesting and rare birds have been observed. We saw none of these, but I was happy with a distant Bonaparte’s Gull view, my first of the year.

 

Carmel River State Beach

Next we entered Point Lobos, happy to get in “free” since we have a State Park Pass this year. Whaler’s Cove parking lot was full, as was Sea Lion Point, so we started on the south end of the preserve at Weston Beach, named for photographer-par-excellence Edward Weston, who, along with Ansel Adams, was fond of photographing Point Lobos’ rocky shores.

Black Oystercatcher

Next up we visited Bird Island, which did not live up to its name this time. Although in late spring it is covered in thousands of nesting Brandt’s and Pelagic Cormorants, there was little other than a half-dozen Brown Pelicans this time. I did get a distant, but good, look at a Bewick’s Wren (LIFER!), which was great.

After a quick lunch we returned to Whaler’s Cove to see if the parking had cleared up. Not really, but we did snag a spot, and set out to hike to the northern boundary of the preserve, the only part we hadn’t been to before.

Whaler’s Cove cabin, now a museum

 

Boiled abalone anyone?

Seals lazing about

White-tailed deer buck

Point Lobos shoreline

Ahh, another day in paradise! The fog was rolling in pretty quickly and heavily, though, so after our hike we hit the road towards home, stopping off at Earthbound Farms’ farm stand in Carmel Valley.

It was a nice stand, but very expensive ($8.50 for a pint of blueberries, yikes! Granted they’re out of season and organic, but still!). Up Hwy 1 a ways we stopped of at a more reasonably-priced (but non-organic) stand and got some artichokes and brussell’s sprouts, mmmmm!

Birds seen:
Gadwall – Anas strepera X
Mallard – Anas platyrhynchos X
Surf Scoter – Melanitta perspicillata X
Horned Grebe – Podiceps auritus X
Eared Grebe – Podiceps nigricollis X
Brown Pelican – Pelecanus occidentalis X
Brandt’s Cormorant – Phalacrocorax penicillatus X
Double-crested Cormorant – Phalacrocorax auritus X
Pelagic Cormorant – Phalacrocorax pelagicus X
Great Blue Heron – Ardea herodias X
Great Egret – Ardea alba X
Snowy Egret – Egretta thula X
American Coot – Fulica americana X
Turkey Vulture – Cathartes aura X
White-tailed Kite – Elanus leucurus X
Red-shouldered Hawk – Buteo lineatus X
Red-tailed Hawk – Buteo jamaicensis X
Black Oystercatcher – Haematopus bachmani X
Black Turnstone – Arenaria melanocephala X
+ Bonaparte’s Gull – Larus philadelphia X
Heermann’s Gull – Larus heermanni X
Mew Gull – Larus canus X
California Gull – Larus californicus X
Western Gull – Larus occidentalis X
Rock Pigeon – Columba livia X
Black Phoebe – Sayornis nigricans X
Say’s Phoebe – Sayornis saya X
Western Scrub-Jay – Aphelocoma californica X
American Crow – Corvus brachyrhynchos X
Common Raven – Corvus corax X
Bushtit – Psaltriparus minimus X
* Bewick’s Wren – Thryomanes bewickii X
Yellow-rumped Warbler – Dendroica coronata X
Song Sparrow – Melospiza melodia X
White-crowned Sparrow – Zonotrichia leucophrys X

(+ = year bird, * = life bird)
This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)