2 May 2016 Monterey is one of the top whale-watching destinations in the world, and today we got a good idea why. We went for a morning trip, and there are loads of good reasons to do that: (1) it’s longer than the afternoon trip, (2) if they see something very cool, they can stay » » »
Archive for May, 2016
29 May 2016
See sea otter day
1 May 2016 This morning we went kayaking on Elkhorn Slough. What is a slough, you cry? It’s a slow-moving river/estuary attached to the sea, a sheltered tidal waterway, home to plenty of wildlife. And at Elkhorn Slough you cannot fail to find yourself kayaking with sea otters! The local wildlife protection rules say you » » »
29 May 2016
Eastern fox squirrel surprise day
30 April 2016 So now we’ve had two AirBnB experiences, and they’ve both been very different. In San Francisco we had a lovely studio apartment in an old Victorian building that survived the 1906 quake. It was furnished with antique pieces and as fully equipped as you could hope. Indeed, it even came with a » » »
Tags: accommodation
22 May 2016
Pavement Pounding Day
29 April 2016 Today we took a long and winding route through many neighbourhoods into the middle of the city. Our trek took us from the very lovely areas around NoPa where we’re staying, and Hayes Valley with all its trendy shops and cafes (we made sure we started late enough for the shops to » » »
22 May 2016
Mission to Mission day
28 April 2016 Wow, they are laaaaa-zy in California. We got out around 9ish, late by our standards. So we wandered into the Hayes Valley area and found a good cafe/bakery for breakfast. Something that’s going to be coming to the UK in a big way soon (well, actually I’ve already seen it in a » » »
22 May 2016
Superior skunk day
27 April 2016 Well, I’m calling this Superior Skunk Day ‘cos strictly speaking this is the day we got great views of a nifty little skunk. The only other animal likely today was the Sonoma chipmunk at Muir Woods, but although we had a nice walk there and hung around the picnic area a while, » » »
Tags: accommodation, city
22 May 2016
Bobcat bonanza day
26 April 2016 We started our day super-early, heading out before sunrise so that we could look for sewellel on the highest part of Point Reyes. The sewellel is a primitive form of rodent, also called a “mountain beaver”, that is very elusive and lives on plants other animals can’t digest like ferns and rhododendrons. » » »
Tags: mammal watching, wildlife
21 May 2016
Rambunctuous raccoon day
25 April 2016 Could have spent another day hanging around Sonoma, but there’s no rest for the wicked – nor for the dedicated mammal-watcher – so we have made our way to the coast and to Point Reyes. On our way we did distract ourselves one more time by stopping at Korbel, one of the » » »
21 May 2016
Wine day
24 April 2016 Today was definitely wine day. No new mammals today, just us as drunk as skunks. Well, we visited five different wineries and tasted more than thirty different wines! Actually, it’s not as bad as it sounds. In California you pay for a wine tasting ($10 is usual for a small winery, but » » »
Tags: wine
21 May 2016
Overtly ottery day
23 April 2016 Today we ended up in Sonoma. Wine country! It looked like it had snowed rather than rained higher up in Yosemite, and the big granite domes were all dusted with icing sugar when we drove away, very beautiful. Our route wound its way gradually down through forested mountains and then grassy hills, » » »
Tags: otters
15 May 2016
Allen’s chipmunk chin-up day
22 April 2016 Well, we finally saw one chipmunk. Out at Hetch Hetchy, a much less visited part of Yosemite National Park in the far north where we had a lovely flower-filled hike alongside the reservoir in the sun. We were a little alarmed to find red newts (or maybe salamanders?) on the path wherever » » »
15 May 2016
Coyote cokey
21 April 2016 Ignore yesterday’s grumbles. Yosemite is undisputably one of the loveliest places on the entire planet. And we’ve visited a whole bunch of the planet’s most renowned treasures and wildernesses, so I’m pretty confident with my statement. If I wanted to try and tease out a reasoned explanation for why this is so, » » »
15 May 2016
Grey fox graduation day
20 April 2016 I do love to hate National Park Rangers. Although I need to be clear: I mean the cheerful and useless tourist-handlers at the information desks, not the dedicated conservation officers out in the field. Whether it’s Yellowstone, Yosemite, Banff or Flinders the conversation is always roughly the same… Me: “We’d like to » » »
14 May 2016
Desert cottontail day
19 April 2016 Our jetlag is perfect for wildlife watching. We woke up nice and fresh at 5am, which meant we could drive out at sunrise to look for wildlife on the Carrizo Plain. We found desert cottontails (rabbits, basically) and more ground squirrels near the (still closed) visitor centre but apart from that, nothing » » »
Tags: mammal watching
14 May 2016
Antelope squirrel amusement day
18 April 2016 I’m naming our days after the best new mammal we saw that day (unless we didn’t). So we’ll see how we go. Today we were visiting the Carrizo Plain, an essentially wild area of dry grassland and scrub in between two of California’s gigantic agricultural valleys. Bone dry mountains separate the Carrizo » » »
14 May 2016
LA arrival day
17 April 2016 It’s best not to be a slave to plans. We had expected the usual rigmarole on arrive in a U.S. airport, and so assumed that our 17:45 arrival time would translate into leaving the airport after 7pm, which would mean picking up our rental car and finally getting on the road at » » »