The Weekend of Wildlife

Coming in to the weekend, the plan was to take it easy on Saturday before heading up to the Bay Area for a friend's house warming party, and then maybe go looking for condors on Sunday.

However, a pod of Orcas visiting Monterey Bay on Thursday indirectly affected those plans. It's early Saturday, I'm getting ready to tidy the house, catch up on the bills and a variety of other errands I'm way behind on when I get a text "Hey, there were Orcas in the bay on Thursday, let's go whale watching".

I have to head up to the party early in the afternoon so after a quick chat to discuss when we'd get back (it fits, just), I'm in!

On top of that, my TV died on Thurs evening, and as I've been tempted to upgrade for a while, its dieing immediately becomes the excuse I've been looking for.

End result, Saturday was whale watching followed by house warming - Sunday was looking for condors on the Ducati followed by buying a TV.

A very tiring weekend - photos of the wildlife are here.

Another Pleasant Coastal Saturday

Yes, it's early Feb, but yes, this is the central coast of California and weekends like this serve to confirm that this is where I should be.

Clear skies, temps around 70 degrees (fahrenheit), lack of tourists, migrating whales, the twisty magnificence that is highway 1 and lack of tourists (did I say that already?) means it's the ideal day to head out on the Ducati with the camera in the back pack.

I initially struck out on the condor front at their northern most likely location, then saw five of them high up at their current favorite more southerly location, so after that it was time to carry on enjoying the ride.

Getting close to my turn around point, I spotted a whale close to shore, and knowing that a mile or so down the road, there was a pull out that overlooked the ocean, I headed there (and had fun through a couple of my favorite curves on the whole road), stopped, unpacked the camera and stood on the edge of the cliff and hoped for the best - I was rewarded.

After I hit the turn around spot and had myself a chocolate feast, it was time to head north again. Stopping at the whale watching vista point, I could see condors to the south of me and condors to the north, but all were up high.

I gambled on the northern birds, but they kept heading north, so I headed up to the coastal gallery pull out hoping to have gotten ahead of them. Ten to twenty minutes passed with no action, though a humming bird did appear and I did try to get decent shots of it.

During this idle humming bird pursuit, the VWS tour stopped by and biologist Sayre detected birds to the south. The tour departed to the south, and I vowed to follow in a few minutes' time. After chatting with a couple on a Harley who've lived in Monterey their whole adult lives and hadn't seen a whale, I pointed out a whale in the ocean and they were chuffed. They soon departed to go find lunch and I decided to pack up and head south looking for the VWS tour and glom off their inside radio tracker knowledge.

The camera was packed, the ear plugs were in and as I lifted my head to pop my helmet on, I see an approaching bird that might, just might, be a condor. A few seconds later it was confirmed, definitely a condor - helmet is back off, ear plugs are being removed and camera is being unpacked and re-assembled.

Thankfully, the bird circled whilst this whole piece of theater was occurring and I was able to get some cool photos of condor #204. That bird was soon joined by another, a juvenile with a big piece missing in one of its wings. I've seen this bird before, but this was the first time it was close enough for an ID (though to be fair, when I asked Sayre about the bird with the missing wing chunk, she'd ID'd it to me earlier) - #501.

The pair floated around for a while, I got some shots, then they headed slightly north and landed on the outcrops below the road. Looking through binocs, I realized that they weren't too far from a couple I know who were having a picnic lunch looking for condors without realizing there were two of them tucked into the cliff face below them.

After ten minutes or so, I headed up to where they were, just as the birds decided to show themselves to that vantage point - much clicking of shutter later, we all had a whole bunch more photos - and caught up on their latest gossip etc.

It's hard to believe it's early Feb as t-shirt, shorts and sun block are the order of the day; photos of the fun are here.