Thursday 7 August 2008

Caliornia birding trip part 3

This is the final installment about a birding trip I took with friends to Southern California. The weather was perfect in April and we saw almost all the target birds that we went for as well as some other fantastic wildlife.

Our drive north from Ventura up the coast to Morro Bay was one of the highlights of the trip for me. Our target for that day was to see Sea Otters. We couldn't have had more luck as for hours, we watched a mother Sea Otter and pup eating and swimming together at pretty close range. A truely magical experience!

This Western Gull often swam close to the Sea Otters to try and snatch a tasty morsel.

Another fantastic time we had was watching a colony of Elephant Seals. We only saw a couple of the males and they stayed pretty distant. The females more than made up for that though with their bickering and fighting and some of the pups were plain cute! (-:


On our last day, we decided to go up into the mountains near Ventura to see if we could see Condors. A small chance I know, but it would have been great just to see one of these amazing birds. We didn't in the end, but it was a lovely peaceful end to our trip up there as we had the place to ourselves.......except for some lizards!


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Sea Otters, quite magical Jen.

Mary said...

That header shot is magnificent! I absolutely adore otters, but only get to see them at aquariums or zoos.....lucky you, to see them wild! The seals are great, too...love the last one. Even the lizards are neat! You must have had a fantastic trip.

Adrian said...

Hey Wren

Great shots and so much to see. Perhaps I need to get out of Britain more.

See you soon, Adgi

Eve said...

Hi Jenny! These are great!! What a fantastic trip and I'm so glad you posted it!! Ok I'm rushing to get ready for my trip to Rome!!! (NY that is!! Ha Ha!)

Jenny said...

Hi Roy, something I'll never forget. We were very lucky!

Hi Mary, thank you. It's been great to look through my photos and re-live this trip. I'd love to go again one day.

Hey Adgi, you'd LOVE America. Almost everything you see over there is different.

Evie, glad you enjoyed the post, have a great time in Rome and don't forget that jacket! (-:

Mosura said...

Wow - the Elephant Seals and otteres would have made the trip for me. How lucky to get good view of the Otter pup.

I watched an otter in the sea up in Scotland once as it dragged a fish bigger than itself to shore and then sat there feeding on it for ages.

Jenny said...

Hi Alan
Yes, they really did make the trip for me. I think most of the gulls in that shot of Morro bay were probably Western Gulls. The one at the front on the left could possibly have been Glaucous-winged.....