January 2018 - Monterey California
I went to a short conference down in Monterey. It was the time of year that monarch butterflies usually come to the area in droves, but for whatever reason there were barely any this year. So that was a total bust, but our stop at the Elkhorn Slough on the way home was not. It is known as a good place to see birds and it did not disappoint.
Also thrown in at the bottom is a sequence of the lunar eclipse that took place a few weeks later. It was a confluence of a super moon, a blue moon, and the eclipse (a blood moon). And it was perfectly visible from California.
I went to a short conference down in Monterey. It was the time of year that monarch butterflies usually come to the area in droves, but for whatever reason there were barely any this year. So that was a total bust, but our stop at the Elkhorn Slough on the way home was not. It is known as a good place to see birds and it did not disappoint.
Also thrown in at the bottom is a sequence of the lunar eclipse that took place a few weeks later. It was a confluence of a super moon, a blue moon, and the eclipse (a blood moon). And it was perfectly visible from California.
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| A Pacific rainbow | A giant sea bass posing by his sign at the Monterey Aquarium | An unidentified very puffy bird |
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| The King of the Tree (likely red-tailed hawk) | A lovely bird going for a walk on the beach | A black phoebe |
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| The Asilomar beach and Spanish Bay | ||
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| The sun setting on Spanish Bay | A great egret | |
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| Least sandpiper | Sanderlings! When they're not nesting in the arctic, they hang out on California beaches. | |
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| Giant groups of sanderlings | Shore birds in the golden sunset | |
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| A squadron of pelicans flying into the sunset | ||
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| The rocky coast | A great egret | |
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| The only clusters of monarchs that came by this year | A nearby goldfinch | Elkhorn Slough, and an island full of white pelicans |
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| A greater yellowlegs | A red-tailed hawk | A killdeer |
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| A pair of California red-sided gartersnakes | An acorn woodpecker | A lesser goldfinch |
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| A whole bunch of long-billed dowitchers, and some least sandpipers | Large crowds of birds all over the place | Egrets |
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| Hanging out... | And action! | |
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| The Elkhorn slough | The Super Blue Blood Moon lunar eclipse of 2018 |