habitat ~ 01/19/14 ~ Morro Bay State Park - Black Hill

Morro Bay State Park - Black Hill

January 19, 2014

This was purely a social visit, so we barely got out on a short section to Black Hill before the football games started.  The road access is located above the Morro Bay Golf Course, a San Luis Obispo County Parks on CA State Parks land.  Confused?  Yeah, me, too.  It looks like they've been cutting back on watering the greens, because there was quite a bit of yellow.  Good.  I think golf is a gross misuse of precious water for an exclusive recreation.

I love the 360° views from on top this volcanic peak and am sorry my uncle didn't join us.  Every visit I worry may be the last time I see him or my aunt, so I try to make the most of our time together.  Even though he still hikes like a mountain goat for short periods of time, he wasn't really aware of the trails here.  I'm not surprised, because for all the years I've been going to Morro Bay, too, it took Andy's wandering trail running ways to discover this little gem a few years back.  

It wasn't until I started Nature ID that I wanted to learn more about Morro Bay, which I discovered is actually part of the larger Estero Bay.  I appreciate the estuary more than ever now, but finding information online has been challenging, especially 5 years ago when I started this blog.  I don't know if google has customized my search properties and/or if the sites have just gotten better.  Two that I like are Morro Bay National Estuary Program and grad student Eric Mohler's Morro Bay Watershed site.

Morro Bay Winter Bird Festival

January 17-20, 2014

Oh, while we were there, this was going on.  Everywhere we went there were folks with good sun hats, binoculars, and cameras so big that I'm surprised they didn't walk all hunched over from the weight around their necks.  The festival was completely not on my radar, so I was not prepared.  Still, I'm not sure I would have participated anyways.  Every time I stopped an obvious birder to ask them what something was, they weren't very helpful or accurate.  Avid birders are a strange bunch.  Talk about another exclusive recreation, which reminds me of the topic of lack of minorities in birding. While I can't say I feel uncomfortable among affluent, retirement-aged, Caucasian nature folks, after all my uncle and aunt fit quite neatly in that category, I am aware I am "other" or the designated minority friend in most groups.  Hmm, maybe that's why I tend not to join things?  My favorite bird blogger is Steve of Bourbon, Bastards, and Birds.  He crushes birder stereotypes.

ps 02/13/20 - I removed several embedded links thanks to Ryan Blundell at Tideschart.  Here's his tidechart for Morro Bay: https://www.tideschart.com/United-States/California/San-Luis-Obispo-County/Morro-Beach.

habitat ~ 07/18/13 ~ Morro Bay State Park

 Morro Bay State Park

July 18, 2013

Wanting a shower, we headed over to the main Morro Bay State Park camping area to use their facilities (this access is included with a stay at the Strand).  While Andy went for a pre-shower run, I strolled around to see what was new.  It's weird to think of my life in decades, but I've been coming to this spot for close to 4 decades.  The very first time, I remember coming home from Morro Bay and not understanding why we were returning to our old house after vacation.  I thought we had moved!

Despite all the financial difficulties the CA State Parks have faced in the last many years, I've been impressed with the improvements they've managed to implement here.  The housing for employees is very nice, with one growing native plants in the backyard for what I assume will be park landscaping.  I sometimes fantasize working at a state or national park with housing provided in the actual park would be awesome, but then you've got to be careful what you ask for.  Like health insurance for many out there, if you lose your job, you end up loosing way more than a paycheck. Maybe when we retire, we'll try the whole camp host thing.  The groomed trails around Black Hill didn't exist when I was a kid; there used to be only an exercise loop with stations and a painted pole-style frisbee golf course. There's also a new boardwalk along the estuary. It's artistically laid out, zigzagging through the muddy parts, but it'll mean no more looking for native horn snails for me.  I have mixed feelings about that.  On one hand I know things need to be protected, fenced, signed, etc., but it comes at the cost of us humans not allowed to get in touch with nature.  In the act of saving, it's also distancing from raw human experience, which is ironic.  Hey, lady, put that shell down and step away!

And, finally, I included the eucalyptus tree above, because I wanted to ask my nature-loving blog readers... have any of you ever heard of hummingbirds clustering in 1 or 2 trees?  I could not believe the loud chatter coming from this tree, and I figured there had to be several dozen hummingbirds, if not a hundred.  It was really wild.