Even the ladies in Andrea’s cafe had seen roadrunners and they didn’t seem that interested in birds. I am interested in birds and I started off another day not having seen a roadrunner. There is a terrific mural of a roadrunner on the Joshua Tree-29 Palms road – it must be about 20 feet long…
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Unfinished business – blog 29
It’s funny isn’t it. I’d never seen a coyote until I saw three looking at a bison calf in Kansas but now I am seeing them all the time. The other evening I had something like 10 coyote sightings and I must have seen about 30 or more on this trip. So having seen wile…
On the road, mostly – blog 28
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Today has been mostly a driving day, the first for quite a while. And it occurs to me that I won’t see the Pacific Ocean again on this trip (unless I get very very lost!). My last view was while looking at green hairstreak habitat restoration with Liam near the top of a hill in…
Identification in kit form – blog 27
And that Liam O’Brien doesn’t just identify butterflies, he identifies mammals too. By the way, I am now in King City, not that far from Monterey really, and not that far from Los Banos either. King City, whose motto should be ‘ King City – fit for a pauper’ as it has several cheap motels…
Two cafes and a butterfly – blog 26
The only person on the scene, missing, was the Xerces blue – almost what Bob Dylan sang. A few days after I disclosed that I was leaving the RSPB, back in January 2011, I was in Oxford for the farming conference and had a coffee in a cafe with Martin Warren, the Chief Exec of…
Strange collection – blog 26
I am going to see an extinct butterfly’s last home so I may not have time to write a blog tomorrow (now today), so here, as a stop-gap, is a collection of wildlife sightings and sightings of Americana that I just want to get off my chest: Amerigo Vespucci, after whom America is named, probably…
More whales – blog 25
Today was writing, whale-watching, writing, whale-watching, writing. I went on morning and evening whale-watching trips and each was excellent, each was different from the other and from my earlier trip (which seems like it was ages ago!). Taken together these two trips provided more blue whales, 2 humpback whales, lots of Risso’s dolphins, lots of…
Cute as anything – blog 24
I was still glowing with delight at seeing killer whale and blue whale yesterday when I woke today. It was quite a misty morning as I headed along California Highway 1 to Moss Landing and Elkhorn Slough. Here, I’d been told, I would see the cute sea otter. And I did! I had a few…
Monterey Bay – blog 23
And now I am in Monterey, just up the road from Carmel where Clint Eastwood was mayor, and the setting for a couple of Steinbeck novels. Hello Pacific Ocean. Fisherman’s Wharf is a bunch of restaurants and gift shops that are keen to sell you fish food or hats and tea-shirts. But there are also…
Not everyone’s cup of tea – blog 22
The Holiday Motel, Los Banos, CA is not everyone’s cup of tea. It is the cheapest place I’ve stayed and for $35 a night you don’t expect much. But I don’t want much – wifi, a shower and a bed will do it. The wifi works, the shower works (I’ve washed myself and some clothes…