Heermann's Gulls

A few friendly Heermann's Gulls were seen around Monterey harbour either side of our whale watching trip. Though we failed to see a full adult bird during the week, these immature birds (of varying ages) were still pretty nice. The final photo above was taken with my 10-22mm lens at a range of about two metres, illustrating just how tame they were.

Sea Lions

It's a tough old life being a California Sea Lion in Monterey, as the above images demonstrate. They're pretty characterful beasts but don't half stink (and the pelicans aren't much better). Think tons of rotten fish...

Gray Whales in Monterey Bay

Winter whale-watching trips out of Monterey are synonymous with the Gray Whale. Our boat trip connected with a group of three individuals in the bay and, unfortunately for us, the boat then simply chased the same three whales about four two-and-a-half hours rather than go and look for more! We did score three Ancient Murrelets and, in the final photo you can see a couple of Guillemots (sorry, Murres) and a Rhinoceros Auklet zooming past the whale's fluke.

Laguna Grande Park, Monterey

We found out about this site largely thanks to a wintering American Dipper, which showed astonishingly well during the evening of 21st (although in poor light) but had disappeared on 22nd. The low light meant shutter speed was slow and thus my shots are nowhere near as good as I might have hoped.

We also chanced upon a wintering Palm Warbler here, which showed well on both our visits. Surprisingly waterthrush-like in behaviour and appearance, and a good one to see in the flesh with future Corvo visits in mind!

Other common birds included Pine Siskins, American and Lesser Goldfinches, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, abundant Yellow-rumped Warblers plus this Downy Woodpecker:

...and plenty of House Finches including this smart male:

Townsend's Warbler

Before the trip, one of my personal targets was to see Townsend's Warblers and hopefully obtain some decent shots of them. The vast majority of Townsend's seen proved distant, difficult to photograph, in poor condition or a combination of all three. Fortunately this individual in Laguna Grande Park posed long enough for me to fire off a few photos as it sat in a flowering shrub a few yards away, although I still left California lacking the shots that I'd hoped for.

South of Monterey

The 20th was the day on which we did the most driving - starting early along Mines Road south of Livermore, we later journeyed south to Monterey via San Jose. Heading for the Big Sur region (to the south of Monterey) as the sun began to drop in the late afternoon, we located a single immature and later a further group of at least ten California Condors soaring high over the coastal ridges towards the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. Here are a couple of adults:

As we pulled over for some dudey landscape photography as the sun sunk towards the horizon of the Pacific out to our west, I located a handful of rather showy Golden-crowned Sparrows scrotting around by the viewpoint. A common bird across Northern California in winter, but we rarely enjoyed such prolonged views during our week. The low sunlight was very warm on the birds hence the exposure might look a bit strange.

And the post wouldn't be complete without a shot of the magnificent Californian coastline...