Season_4_USGS_et_al
Greetings SoCal and the rest of the world!
Amazing how time flies when you look at your blog post record and see that the most recent posts were from a couple of months back now (Galapagos). Since Galapagos, I haven’t ventured too far – although, once again I moved from Davis, CA back down to San Diego County for season 4 with USGS. I went through my usual routine of beginning to pack up in Davis about 3 weeks before I was to head south which made the move less rushed and it seems to have been an easier shift this year. The big change this year was not staying at SMER (Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve) for the ~6 months I spend down here in SoCal with my work @ USGS. Fortunately, I found a place to stay here in Leucadia/Encinitas with a friend who has been living here for about 6 months. Living on the coast has been a nice change of pace, weather, for new local explorations, local fish tacos, and more. The coastal lagoons are a blessing on this stretch of coast and I try to go to a few of them each week. The highlight of Batiquitos Lagoon (closet lagoon for me) was the discovery of an active Great-horned Owl nest about a month ago. Frequent visits to the nest have been rewarding as we see the owlets getting bigger each week. This past week the first of the owlets completely left the nest and the other two explored many feet out of the nest and onto the limbs surrounding the nest. I only am posting a few photos of the nest in this slideshow as I will have a video of the owls (and more) ready in a fews days hopefully. Working on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton (BASE) daily keeps me immersed in nature 6-7 hrs a day. Surveys on BASE for the California Gnatcatcher(s) (CAGNs) prove a great way to get to know the various habitats, backroads, and training areas on the base. Our CAGN plots are scattered all over from near sea-level all the way up to about 1000 ft up in the coastal mountains. Unfortunately, I don’t think most of us detect a lot of CAGNs on BASE, but the past week I had fledgling CAGNs at one point, so that was fun and hopeful. Spring breeding/nesting for all birds is moving along for many species we encounter. Seeing various species’ active nests is always an encouraging site – especially the local owl and Osprey nests with growing nestlings. Trips to San Diego have been adding good wildlife sightings at seal beach, La Jolla Cove, underwater at the Cove (Horn Sharks), San Diego River, and up at Cabrillo NM. Seeing a drone scare most of the seabirds off the cliffs at La Jolla Cove wasn’t such a good experience – the cormorants are on eggs down there along the cliffs! Fish tacos have been keeping me semi-nourished once a week and Leucadia Donut Shoppe’s 5am donut visits round out the perfect SoCal diet. A recent trip to San Diego River near Mission Beach to watch the terns, skimmers, gulls, and egrets mill around in the tidal flats went well until a homeless man on a bike swerved over and kicked me in my knee (I wasn’t hurt at all, but seemed like it could have gone worse for sure) – that killed the buzz of enjoying what usually is a decent place to just walk and observe. A guy spinning donuts in the same area in his truck topped that off as he was about 100ft from a killdeer nest (with 4 eggs) I had just found on the edge of the parking lot. Ugh! Anyhow, most everything else is going smoothly in SoCal life here in Leucadia/Encinitas. Being close to the beach (200m) makes it easy to escape into sunsets and waves, and I have about 6 days of attempted surfing now (I don’t even know if I can call myself a beginner yet – standing some on the board). On the way home from San Diego River I had a most unusual encounter on I-5. I was driving in the lane second from the right and saw a dead animal in the road near Del Mar. I drove around it and got a glance of some white and dark features. Then, seconds later in my lane I saw what looked like two medium-sized songbirds (blackbird size?)…..right away I realized what it was – two ducklings! Holy Cow – what can you do on a packed highway to avoid hitting something like that. The ducklings somehow got to the dividing line between lanes and I passed them! Then, I kept my eyes on the right rear mirror as these little ones had one more lane to go across to “safety?”. Well, I watched those two little bodies make it to the shoulder – both kind of leaning into their stride the way ducks walk/run. Somehow, I feel like this moment/event altered my perspective on the fragility of life. Interestingly, I had just seen three ducklings in the San Diego River that were happily following their mum in the river. Such precious life! Well, I could go on with some more tall tales and deep philosophy about how profound it can be to spend every day outdoors immersed in natural environments focused on wildlife or at least in wild habitats, but mainly I am just here to post some pictures and show what is I see and do day-to-day. Enjoy the slideshow – complete with Rihanna music (song titled “work”) that I find somewhat fitting as most of what I do here is related to work and/or looking for neat wildlife or scenery to photograph that also takes a little work/effort….stay tuned for owl video…..
This blog revolves around just about anything I happen to be doing, it documents places I travel to, and it is a place to share my interests with others online.
bay salt blog 