Sunday, September 27, 2009

On Into the Weekend

Stirred out early-ish on Saturday to try to see the turkey vulture migration (please look at map). No, still no turkey vultures. I was out there at Salt Creek, sitting on the bench where the researcher Diann MacRae set up shop last year, at 9:30. The sun was out and many of the occupants of the campground wandered down the steps onto the rocks with their coffee mugs in hand, but no turkey vultures came across the Strait for the next hour and a half (unless they are really subtle, or happened to veer to the side before they came in sight). Fog came rolling in from the west at 11. I decided no vulture in his right mind would think about soaring across the Strait in a chilly fog, so I left.

Of course, probably the fog didn't stay; and maybe vultures don't have minds...

The other Sibley book (Bird Life and Behavior) quite interesting about New World vultures. They are more closely related to storks than to hawks. They form pair bonds for life, but will choose another partner if one dies. They have some inaesthetic habits.

Salt Creek County Recreation Area, 09/26/09 (Click for larger image.)

A couple of seals swam by just outside the kelp bed. They were really big, maybe they were sea lions, I couldn't get a good enough look to tell. One of the coffee mug people said there had been a whale in Crescent Bay around the corner yesterday, and after a couple of hours it swam right by the point here; and they had seen two sea lions.

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