San Diego From the Air and La Jolla Cove

Before heading back to San Juan Island, we spent a few more days in San Diego. We took a short scenic flight over the city, and my favorite part was flying up the coastline at about 1000 feet. I even saw a few gray whales and bottlenose dolphins from the air!

La Valencia hotel, also known as the Pink Lady of La Jolla

La Jolla Cove

Scripps Institute of Oceanography

The next day, we had a chance to visit La Jolla cove on the ground. It was insanely crowded as locals and visitors enjoyed the unseasonably warm early spring weather, and it never ceases to amaze me how the marine wildlife is living in such close proximity to so many people. Too close, really, I thought in this case.

People were showing little to no regard for the posted regulations about keeping your distance from sea lions.

It was really disheartening to see people not caring at all about the healthy sea lions, let alone the sick and dead ones. Here's someone taking a selfie with a pup; you can see one of them is really emaciated.

It's been a tough year for sea lion pup survival, and I'm sure the added stress of people isn't helping. But for some reason, the sea lions keep hanging out there.

We were commenting how amazing it was no one had been bitten, but apparently just a few hours before we were there a five year old kid got bitten in the face by a sea lion so....there you go.

In addition to the California sea lions, there were some harbor seals on the beaches as well. I was surprised to see so many pups; up here in Washington the pups aren't born until July, but I guess in California pups are born between February and April. This one was nursing despite having people all around it:

There were also lots of pelicans and cormorants around, plus one wandering tattler (137) to top off my year list additions for the California/Mexico trip.

Then, on Monday the 23rd, it was time to make the last leg of journey back north, where we welcomed by rain in Seattle.

Flying over the Space Needle on our descent into Seattle

A Return to Laguna San Ignacio

In February 2014 I got to go on the trip of a lifetime to visit the friendly gray whales at San Ignacio Lagoon on the Baja Peninsula in Mexico. It's something I had dreamed of doing for over 15 years, and while I knew I would go back, I never imagined it would be so soon. Thanks to being invited along on a group trip with a very good friend of mine, I was fortunate enough to head back south to Laguna San Ignacio last week.

We traveling with the same tour group - Baja Discovery - as I did last year. Their camp is in the best location, right on a prime whale-watching point, so you can watch the whales literally all the time. As I call it, the camp at Punta Piedra is "the Lime Kiln of Baja". We all met in San Diego, then crossed into Mexico and flew down to the lagoon. While on the bus in Tijuana, I spotted my first Mexican year bird: cliff swallow (122).

The flight itself is scenic. At times you can see both the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Cortez. Here's a shot looking down on an island from the plane as we flew down the Pacific coast:

It wasn't far from here that I saw my first gray whales of the trip - from about 10,000 feet!

Gray whale, as seen from the plane

To get from San Juan Island to the camp at Punta Piedra I travel by ferry, car, plane, bus, plane again, van, and, finally, panga:

While the first evening was taken up most with settling into camp (and not with photography), I did have to step out with the camera to take in the stars on that clear night. Here's the constellation Orion, along with a ton of other stars:

On our first morning at camp, it was the bottlenose dolphins that stole the show. As they would every morning, about 30-40 of them were foraging right off the point. I would later get the first cetacean recording with our new hydrophone of bottlenose dolphin clicks and whistles! On the first day, however, I was thrilled to catch this photo of a jumping dolphin:

The mornings were also great for birding, with lots of shorebirds roosting on the point and others foraging just offshore:

 

 When it was time for our first whale watch, though, the focus turned to gray whales!

The San Juan whale contingent: me, Cindy (who works for Baja Discovery in Mexico and The Whale Museum on San Juan Island), and my friend and research partner Michael

The whale-watching was very different for me this year compared to last year. Last year, we went down with the first trip of the season in early February, when there were still lots of males in the lagoon. Whale-watching is only allowed in the outer portion of the lagoon, and in that area there was lots of mating activity, while the moms with the very young calves were all deeper in the lagoon. This year, in mid-March, all the males have already departed. Pretty much just mothers and calves were left in the lagoon, most of them in the outer lagoon where the boats can go. The whale activity was much less frenzied - unless you count all those calves learning how to breach!

The whales were also a lot "friendlier", in that the calves were the right age to start approaching the boats more than earlier in the season. When they do, it's hard to know what to do - it ends up being some combination of taking pictures/video and just enjoying it! For this first trip, this is about the only good photo I got of the whales approaching before it was time to touch my first baby gray whale :)

Incoming whales! Heading straight for our panga

You might think hanging out at a desert camp on the edge of a lagoon would leave you with lots of time to do nothing, but life at camp is busy! If you're not whale-watching or eating, there's lots of other activities to participate in, such as going on a tidal walk to the mudflats not far from camp. After doing "the stringray shuffle" to cross a tidal creek, I got a flurry of year birds: little blue heron (123), white ibis (124), short-billed dowitcher (125), turkey vulture (126), and American oystercatcher (127):

American oystercatcher with other shorebirds in the background

While I loved all the birds, the highlight of the tidepools were the two-spot octopi. If a female had eggs, it got left alone in its scallop shell home:

Female octopus with eggs in a scallop shell

But when we found one without eggs, we got to briefly take it out to look at it:

Two-spot octopus!

After tide-pooling, it was time for our second whale-watch of the day - life is rough, I know. This time I got a few more photos of a baby checking us out:

All this, and it was only our first full day! I have several more blog posts in the queue to share, but if you're ready for more now, check out this video I put together of our trip. Towards the end is some underwater gray whale footage I shot.

Boosting the Year List in California

Even though it's been a mild winter in Washington, it's always a nice time of year to head south and get some warm sunshine. Yesterday we arrived in sunny San Diego where they were experiencing their first "nice" Saturday of the season, at a steamy 90 F. (Seemingly everyone was outside, and we kept hearing it was because of the nice weather - I guess 75 and sunny doesn't cut it for the locals.)

Descending into San Diego

As luck would have it, we just overlapped in San Diego with a friend of mine, so we went to meet him in La Jolla for lunch and a walk on the beach. Despite all the chatting to catch up, my eyes were still ticking off the year birds! Brown pelican (93), whimbrel (94), western gull (95), Heermann's gull (96), ring-billed gull (97), osprey (98), willet (99), marbled godwit (100), long-billed curlew (101), royal tern (102). And this was without camera or bincoulars! So sorry, no pictures. I added one more for the day on the way to our hotel: red-shouldered hawk (103).

This morning we had some time to bird my all-time favorite spot, Batiquitos Lagoon. We had originally planned to check out a new spot before the day heated up, but it was so packed there we drove the extra distance to good ol' Batiquitos. It warmed up quite a bit again while we were there, but the birds didn't seem to mind, as we counted about 40 species in an hour and a half there.

Again, the year birds came fast and furious, so much so that I lost count of how many I added until making up the list at the end of the day. First were the mourning doves (104) just after stepping out of the car, followed quickly by house finch (105) - you can tell I still had quite a few of the regular/expected species to add. But then the good stuff started coming! Wrentits (106), snowy egret (107), great egret (108):

Great egret

One of the bigger surprises was two pairs of lesser goldfinches (109)!

Male (green-backed morph) lesser goldfinch

California towhee (110):

California towhee

A black-bellied plover (111) was in with some willets. A nice flock of ruddy ducks (112) were out in the lagoon that was dominated mostly by wigeon and coot. I heard a few common yellowthroat (113). We saw a pair of copulating Cooper's hawks, and what looked like a house wren (114) feeding a fledgling already. There were hummingbirds all over the place but the lighting was never right to identify them with the exception of one male Anna's, but I did see several Cassin's kingbirds (115).

A couple of bushtits (116) were foraging on the ground near a lizard - I love these cute little guys.

Bushtit

Several yellow-rumped warblers (117) foraged with the house finches and song sparrows in the tree tops. After reaching our turnaround point, three American white pelicans (118) flew overhead. I just got the camera up in time to catch the last one before it disappeared behind the trees:

American white pelican)

Since we had also heard marsh wrens near the trailhead, this Bewick's wren (119) made the third wren species of the day:

Bewick's wren

On the way back we added mallard, killdeer, and a singing savannah sparrow (120) to the day list, as well as this long-billed curlew:

Long-billed curlew

Finally, back at the car, I saw a northern mockinbird (121), capping off the morning with a whopping 18 new species added to the year list at Batiquitos (and 29 in my first 24 hours in California). This only serves to get me back in the mix with Dave, who at last count was at 122. It also gives me a nice lead on my dad, at 97, but only momentarily, as he's got a trip up later this month!

Next up the focus will be a bit more on marine mammals than on birds, but you know I never stop looking at the bird life either! By this time next week I expect to have some truly spectacular photos to share.

Heading Back North

On our last day in Baja - already two weeks ago today! - I got up extra early. People had been giving reports of a beautiful moonset on previous mornings and I decided to fully take in our last hours there. It was a bit cloudy, but still impressive as the moon disappeared into the lagoon:

Almost simultaneously, the sun was rising in the opposite direction:

After another delicious breakfast, we had a few more minutes to take in the whales off the point before the panga ride back to Kuyima. As an added bonus, a big mixed flock of shorebirds flew up, too!

Marbled godwits

Willets

 Included in the group was my last year bird for Mexico - a few short-billed dowitchers (130):

Marbled godwit, willet, and short-billed dowitcher

All too soon it was time to go. The planes were waiting for us at Kuyima:

Luckily the weather cooperated for another smooth flight back north, and the scenery was stunning for the whole flight. Here was our last look at Laguna San Ignacio:

A few more scenic shots, looking east towards the Sea of Cortez:

As we began our descent, it was back into civilization at Tijuana. A bit of a culture shock, even after just four days away!

Luckily our trip wasn't completely over quite yet. We had some more friends to visit in San Diego and some more birds to see first!

The Trip to Laguna San Ignacio

I've just returned from a phenomenal five days at Punta Piedra along the shore of San Ignacio Lagoon in Baja, Mexico. This is a trip I've dreamed of taking for about 15 years since I first heard about the gray whale breeding areas where these intelligent creatures interact with humans. It will take several blog posts to properly feature all the amazing wildlife I witnessed, and this first one will just document the journey it took to get there. I traveled with Baja Discovery, and I can't recommend this company highly enough after the experience I had!

Modes of transportation required to go from my front door on San Juan Island to my tent in San Ignacio: car, ferry, car, plane, shuttle bus, car, bus, plane, van, boat.

One reason it took until now for me to take this trip is because of my fear of flying. Just recently have I gotten up the nerve to get back on an airplane, and a small plane ride was part of the deal to get to San Ignacio. After meeting up with our group and leaving San Diego, we crossed the border into Tijuana where we got on a couple of charter planes. The flight was thankfully much smoother than I had anticipated, and we got stunning views of the Baja coastline as we headed south.

Here's a look at the second plane flying nearby:

We flew over Guerrero Negro, where a salt mine operates near another of the gray whales' breeding lagoons, Laguna Ojo de Liebre. This was almost the fate for the nearly pristine San Ignacio, but a huge effort led by NRDC and other environmental groups halted the project in 1999.

Clouds over Laguna Ojo de Liebre

Finally, we got our first sight of Laguna San Ignacio, and could see the point of land where our camp would be for the next four nights:

Arrow indicating Punta Piedra, the location of our camp, in San Ignacio Lagoon

Whale-watching is highly regulated in the breeding lagoons. In Laguna San Ignacio, whale-watching is permitted only in the outer third of the lagoon, and the inner two thirds are a preserve. Boats are only allowed out between 8 and 5, and the number of boats are also limited. All boats are driven by local fisherman who participate in ecotourism when they're not allowed to fish in lagoons, which are closed to most fishing during the months the whales are there.

From the plane, as we passed over the lagoon, I spotted my first three gray whales of the trip. We arrived at the Kuyima "airport", really just a strip of desert that has been rolled flat. We loaded our luggage into vans for the ride to the boats.

The welcoming committee included an osprey perched on its nest at the airstrip. There were lots of osprey posts with nests on them, most of them occupied.

A sign on a nearby building let us know we had arrived at the Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve:

We were warned ahead of time that traveling in Mexico is always an adventure, and that turned out to be very true! On the way to the boats our van broke down. It was pretty hot, so we all got out and waited in the desert for another van to come and rescue us.

When we got to Kuyima, we had a bit of a wait, as we needed the tide to rise so the boats could come and get us. We all changed into our "boat clothes", clothes that we would wear every time we went out on the water. They were going to get wet, and with the salt water, they would never really fully dry out. While some people enjoyed their first cerveza of the trip, I started off my Mexican birding with three year birds: brant (112) [Note for those keeping score - added 5 more year birds before leaving California: mourning dove, northern mockingbird, California gull, wrentit, and spotted sandpiper], turkey vulture (113), and Caspian tern (114). We could also see some gray whales blowing in the distance. It was hard to believe I was finally here!

Finally, it was time to load the boats, or pangas, and head to camp. I was on the windy side, so got thoroughly baptized in lagoon water during our 20 minute ride to camp. We could see more whales along the way, and what was really exciting is that as we neared Punta Piedra, we also started seeing the highest concentration of whales! It was clear our camp was definitely overlooking a whale hot spot.

After being welcomed ashore, we received our tent assignments. Accommodations proved to be pretty comfortable with cots inside the tents, but the constant wind made for pretty loud tent flapping during the night - something that would take some getting used to!

It didn't take long for everyone to congregate at the point to watch the sunset. It was a magical moment that many of us would remark upon for the rest of the trip. After a long day of travel we had arrived. The golden lighting was beautiful, the scenery spectacular. And, most amazing of all, there were whales everywhere. We watched more than 20 whales breathe, spyhop, and breach as the sun went down. We had all been eagerly pointing out each whale to one another up to this point. I have to laugh when I recall someone commenting, "I think we can dispense with 'I see one' now." There were whales everywhere.

It was just a teaser of what was to come. The next morning, our whale and wildlife watching would start in earnest!