A Loop Through California
- VIS Photography
- 6 days ago
- 4 min read
When I first started photographing wildlife I was living in California, just north of the San Francisco Bay. I was never all that into the city, though I'll never say it isn't an amazing place. Despite the media's opinion on San Francisco, I found it to be full of kind people, beautiful architecture, and a kind of buzz that so many people fell in love with. Add in some incredible food, wonderful music, and some great wine in the Napa Valley, and it's the kind of place that never quite leaves you. I fell in love with Colorado, and I'll never regret the move, but I still love to visit, take friends from my landlocked state to the beaches, and go explore the temperate mountains.
This last trip, I dragged a buddy with me -- but he couldn't get the whole period off work. He'd never been on an airliner, despite having flown with me in 172s and Cherokees, so he joined me for the first 4 days, and I dropped him off at SFO early on the 5th to experience the magic of turbine engines.
Over the course of his stay, we'd done a bit of cruising, wandering in the eastern hills, and some pond wading, with marginal success. Cruising had been by far the most successful, with almost 20 tiny neonate gopher snakes (P. catenifer.)
Once he'd departed, I drove south, heading for the Santa Cruz Mountains, in search of salamanders, coyotes, and the ever-elusive California Mountain Kingsnake (L. zonata.) I started in Gilroy, and drove north into Mt. Madonna County Park, an area rich in salamanders, including Ensatina, Rough-Skinned Newts, and the
California Giant Salamander, which I
have always wanted to see, and never
managed to! I didn't see any of my main targets, so I spent my time with the many Ensatina wandering the forest floor. These are some of my favorite critters from this part of the world, their bright colors and huge eyes make them absolutely adorable to me, and the frequency with which they can be encountered in these temperate forests is wonderful. Wildlife never carries any guarantee, and I can't say how many times I've been left high and dry, with $100 in gas completely wasted. If you know what you're doing looking for Ensatina, you will find them. No way around it, not that I'd want one.
While I love the humid forests of the Santa Cruz area, I couldn't stay for long. I made my way North, working through the mountains, finding many more Ensatina and one Rough-Skinned Newt, a lifer for me. It wasn't the most successful day, but for a cold day without rain, it was more than enough. Winding through the redwood and oak forests, peaks looking over on bustling cities, it's a feeling that's hard to beat.
From the temperature forests, I drove into the bay, aimed for an inlet on the northern side of the bay famous (to me) for a fantastically healthy coyote population and one of my favorite species of all time, the Tule Elk.
Not only are the Tule Elk spectacular, they are a story of conservation success. In the 1860's, they were declared extinct. Through a strange stroke of luck, a group of less than 20 individuals was discovered on a cattle ranch in 1874 -- and the cattle ranch's owner did something that laid the groundwork for all future efforts. He protected them, instead of hunting them. Through this group, the genetic line was preserved, and in 1933, the state of California added protections, with the US Congress following in 1970. Today, there are an estimated 5,700 individual Tule Elk, all from the same 20 individuals. The story of the Tule Elk reminds us how much one person can actually do to change the world for the better, and we should all thank Henry Miller and his cattle ranch.
The Tule Elk are definitely a favorite of mine, but I don't have weeks to sit and stare at them, so we move on.
Colorado doesn't have any oceans, so I always make sure I get out on the ocean at least a little bit while visiting the coast. On this trip, that meant a quick boat trip out from Point Reyes on a cold and windy evening. I'm not one to turn away from the cold, and I was hoping for a whale, and so scanned the horizon as we left the inlet. While I did spot one Porpoise rising to the West, he didn't surface in any predictable pattern and was very successful at making sure my sensor never quite got there in time. It isn't easy to aim a 600-millimeter lens from a boat being tossed in rough waters.
While I'll admit to being disappointed in the lack of whales, the birds and the seals were out in force. White Pelicans, Brandt's Cormorants, and a vast array of terns and gulls filled the air and pier posts around me. A large Belted Kingfisher sat at the inlet of the harbor, a relatively uncommon site and one of my favorite species to photograph.
I'll end on this note, because I've rambled enough. California is an amazing state with so much contained within it.
Ciao!
