8 May 2016 We’ve given pretty short shrift to breakfasts this holiday. A lot of it is due to mammal watching – when you go out super-early in the morning, you generally miss the opportunity for breakfast at your lodgings. So a lot of our breakfasts have been odd things out of the snack bag. » » »
Archive for June, 2016
6 June 2016
Island fox in socks
7 May 2016 The last excursion of our California trip! A day out on Santa Cruz, one of the Channel Islands that lies off the coast near Los Angeles. What’s special about it is a species of fox that is only found on the Channel Islands, a very small fox called (originally) the Island Grey » » »
4 June 2016
Paso Robles wine day
6 May 2016 Much better! More wine! Good wine! The countryside around Paso Robles is beautiful, rolling green hills and sun-dappled wooded valleys, scattered with vineyards becoming vivid green as the vines grow into the summer. It’s exactly what wine country ought to look like. My favourite winery was the one I thought I’d like » » »
Tags: wine
4 June 2016
Townsend’s long-eared bat attack
5 May 2016 So naturally we had a fairly easy start today. For us, that meant leaving the motel around 9ish. It was a perfectly decent motel, by the way, nothing at all special but nothing wrong; the Hollister Inn. Just in case you ever find yourself in Hollister, California. Which you won’t. We stopped » » »
4 June 2016
Overdone kangaroo rat
4 May 2016 On most mammal watching holidays we hit a day when we overdo it. This was that day. It started really pleasantly, with some early morning sea otter watching from the shore at Elkhorn Slough. There was one dozing on the sand less than five metres from us. Because it was grey and » » »
4 June 2016
Grey whale mayday
3 May 2016 Today was one of those low-key days, not particularly planned out and only really salvaged by a wonderful sighting of grey whales. Actually it’s worth noting that the weather had also turned; grey clouds from horizon to horizon, descending to fog in places along the coast. So not the most perfect conditions » » »
Tags: whales