Resting giant

By now, most of the large male elephant seals are likely back out at sea, where they'll stay without coming back to land until sometime in July. This shot is from my trip to Ano Nuevo State Reserve in January, and is of a sleepy large male along the loser's beach in the park. Since these guys are usually thought of as big ugly aggressive beasts, I like to show their more mellow side -- and really, they spend most of their time resting anyway. In this shot, I like how clearly you can see their eyebrows, which is a clear patch of nine fat hairs.

Quick Post -- Great Blue on Blue

Spent some time over the weekend with this handsome great blue heron while it hunted for a late dinner.

The owl and the squirrel

A lesson: never turn your back on a squirrel.


Getting closer to the unsuspecting owl:


Actually, these guys seemed to tolerate each other quite nicely. It was sort of surprising to see the squirrels come right up into the owl's space, and that the owl really didn't care. It's more fun to post shots that make it appear as if there was some tension, but really they were pretty indifferent.



Both focused on the same thing:


The California ground squirrels are generally regarded as a nuisance, but when not bothering someone's agriculture or garden, they are actually kind of cute.

Quick post -- when you've got an itch, elk style

Watching this bull elk scratching those hard to reach places was fairly comical, and seemingly dangerous with those spikes. Taken alone the Tomales Point Trail in Point Reyes National Seashore in January.

It seems like it might be fairly useful for helping to get rid of that thick winter coat too.

Blackbirds at Ano Nuevo

I'm going back through all of my unposted shots from a January trip to see the elephant seals at Ano Nuevo State Reserve in hopes of putting together a post about the pups, and remembered that I took a few frames of these curious blackbirds as we waited for our tour to start. These birds seem to hang around the picnic areas there, and were happy to land on posts only a few yards away.



I really like the pose in this shot (it looks sort of like he's mid-dance), although I wish the head was turned just a bit more so it was brighter.