habitat ~ 11/25/13 ~ Monterey Harbor & Marina

Monterey Harbor & Marina
November 25, 2013

I'm so glad we decided to stay home for the holiday.  With an easily walkable view like this, can you blame us?  Despite our desperate need for rain, I have been enjoying the gorgeous weather we've had.  This picture was taken from the Rec Trail that I so love. The City of Monterey has a nice site on the history of the Harbor, which I just discovered.  On this section of trail, I've been keeping an eye on a family of night herons, a laughing herd of Heermann's gulls, western gulls, several kingfishers, snowy egrets, great egrets, great blue herons, brown pelicans, and new seasonal gulls with spotty grey around the eyes that I have yet to ID.

habitat ~ 11/25/10 ~ Monterey Bay Recreational Trail

Turkey Trot
November 25, 2010

It was beautiful here for Thanksgiving this year. Andy took these pictures as he ran to the start at Lover's Point for the decidedly unofficial, annual Turkey Trot. As I understand it, the goal is to run towards Asilomar and back within 1 hour exactly. Whoever returns closest to the 1 hour mark gets an ugly trophy to hold and keep safe until next year. We have several pictures of friends and I'm still figuring out if sending pics as an e-mail attachment is couth.

It's almost harbor seal pup season. The fencing was already up by the time we got back from Rome on Friday. We haven't seen any pups, yet. See April 15, 2009 for pics of last year's pups.

habitat ~ 02/05/10 ~ Monterey Bay Recreation Trail

Monterey Bay Recreation Trail
February 2, 2010

I was attempting to capture all 3 flowers in one pic to show what's blooming right now. The bright orange flower is definitely a California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) because of the red ring at the base of the encased bud. The seaside daisy (Erigeron glaucus) is in the back with the spoon-shaped leaves. And the bright yellow Bermuda buttercup (Oxalis pres-caprae) is the non-native flower in the mix.

harbor seal ~ 04/15/09 ~ Rec Trail

harbor seal
Phoca vitulina

It's pup season! The first pic is from one of Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station beaches where harbor seals can be seen year-round from the rec trail. The last pic is at the end of 5th street in PG where they fence off the area every year to rock-clambering tourists. There's been concern and some discussion in town around what to do if the harbor seals start moving onto Lover's Point Beach to have their pups. 2009 has been a very productive year for harbor seal pups. Some say their food supply is abundant this year.

Pacific Grove sunrise from Rec Trail
February 24, 2009

I love these pics of the sunrise. It had rained in the early morning hours and I was down on the trail to check out the filming of an AT&T commercial. The irony is if you have AT&T cell service, you get very poor reception at this location on the trail and your calls drop.