Canuck2 Posted March 11, 2010 Report Share Posted March 11, 2010 (edited) I guess it was no great surprise that there were far fewer large mammals hanging out in the desert than I'm used to seeing around home. In fact, the biggest animal I saw in 4 weeks was a single coyote. Only when we headed home up the coast did we begin to spot more and bigger life forms - some of them very intriguing. Nonetheless, the smaller life forms in southern CA were equally interesting. Beep Beep! This bird was making a bit of a fuss in a palm tree; in fact, it almost seemed to be mocking me. I wonder what kind it was? At a coastal town in southern California, Pismo Beach, there is a monarch butterfly wintering grove. They form clusters of several hundred in the trees and are an amazing sight. However, we missed the concentrations by about 2 weeks as the vast majority had finished their overwintering and had lit a shuck. The few stragglers were still pretty neat to watch. The wildlife highlight of the whole trip was a mess of elephant seals hanging out on a beach near the Hearst Castle about half way between San Francisco and Los Angeles. These things are huge, ugly, noisy, stinky, and extremely intriguing. They are so cumbersome on land that when a subordinate bull gets too close to a bigger bulls' harem, the big guy will put the run on him - about 4 steps at a time. Then there's a lengthy resting period before another dash of 4 paces. Mostly they lie around like huge boulders littering the beach as far as you can see and honking at the top of their lungs. This was breeding season, which is also done by expending as little energy as possible. Finally, in southern Oregon, a blacktail deer. Edited March 11, 2010 by Canuck2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buckee Posted March 11, 2010 Report Share Posted March 11, 2010 Cool pics Jack. That's a great picture of the Mocking Bird. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruttinbuc Posted March 11, 2010 Report Share Posted March 11, 2010 Great work, Jack! Road Runner is pretty cool! To think what Wile E. Coyote spent on all the Acme gadgets to tryto catch the beeper! He could of bought all the groceries he needed, no? Hunters are one and the same, I guess.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diamond Archer 01 Posted March 11, 2010 Report Share Posted March 11, 2010 Great pics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaun_300 Posted March 14, 2010 Report Share Posted March 14, 2010 Awesome pics Jack! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TreeStandBowHunter Posted March 16, 2010 Report Share Posted March 16, 2010 (edited) Great work, Jack! Road Runner is pretty cool! To think what Wile E. Coyote spent on all the Acme gadgets to tryto catch the beeper! He could of bought all the groceries he needed, no? Hunters are one and the same, I guess.. Yeah that's what I was going to say too, I think that one bird is a roadrunner. We used to see them all the time when I was stationed out in So. Cal. They had them things all over Camp Pendleton. Edited March 16, 2010 by TreeStandBowHunter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wobbly_Alaska Posted March 16, 2010 Report Share Posted March 16, 2010 This was breeding season, which is also done by expending as little energy as possible. welcome to Cali........:jaw: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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