Author: corvidsketcher

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Stand By Me Bridge

On my last day in Lassen, I headed north through the National Park to sketch a cinematic railroad bridge. This bridge is called the Lake Britton Bridge and spans a finger of Lake Britton near Burney, California.

This bridge is featured in one of the most famous scenes in the 1986 film Stand By Me, directed by Rob Reiner (of All in the Family and Spinal Tap fame). Stand by Me was the third film he directed and was based on the Stephen King novella “The Body”. Reiner has also stated that Stand By Me is his favorite film. (I’m going with This is Spinal Tap.)

The plot is a “coming of age” story about four boys that go on an adventure along a railroad to look for a dead body (this is a Stephen King story after all). It featured young actors Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O’Connell (in his acting debut), and Kiefer Sutherland.

The bridge was built in 1955 on the McCloud River Railroad, primarily a logging railroad. The steel bridge is 450 feet long and is about 75 feet above the waters of Lake Britton. The bridge has now been stripped of rails and is no long in use. This part of the Burney branch was operational until 2005.

The Lake Britton Railroad Bridge is now without rails. It will someday be retrofitted as a walking trail, part of the Shasta Rail Trail. This is looking in the direction in which the train was coming.

The bridge plays a prominent role in one of the most famous sequences of the film. It was one of the few sequences, according to Reiner, that was actually storyboarded.

In the scene, the four boys come to the edge of the bridge. And they wonder when the next train is coming. They contemplate taking another route that will take much longer but will be safer. (Safer never works in cinema). Two of the boys, Chris Chambers and Teddy Duchamp, start across the bridge. The two other boys, Gordie Lachance and Vern Tessio are reluctant to start across. Well I bet you can guess where this is going.

Gordie nervously looks down the rails. No train. He stoops and places his hand on the rail, he feels no vibrations. He stands up and slowly makes his way across the bridge. Vern is crawling on his hands and knees.

Gordie again stoops to feel the rail, gripping it tightly. He looks down the bridge and sees steam exhaust billowing above the trees. He stands and in slow motion, exclaims the famous line, “TRAIN!!!!”

And you will just have to watch the movie to see if they survived the ultimate train dodge.

I pulled off Highway 89, just after crossing Lake Britton, on a dirt road heading down toward the Dusty Campground. To my right was the red dirt graded roadbed that was the former McCloud River Railroad right-away. I parked on the former railroad and headed out to the bridge.

The photo is taken close to where I sketched the bridge. Note the barrier and barbed wire to prevent Stand By Me fans from recreating the run across the bridge. That does not stop them from adding some cinematic graffiti to the landmark.
I added this to my sketch. It’s refreshing to see some graffiti that does not contain a load of four letter words, unlike the film, Stand By Me!

I picked my spot, right near the camera position in Stand By Me and I started to sketch. It was a beautiful day and the scene before was wonderful to add to my sketchbook.

Coda:

August 2, 2016 8:50 AM

On an Oregon coastal drive on Highway 101 from Astoria to Florence, I came to the small town of Garibaldi (Population 779). To my surprise, this coastal town was home to a tourist railway, the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad.

It was in the morning and I was exciting to see an engine under steam, getting ready for the day. I took a few pictures of the 2-6-2 “Prairie” Type steam locomotive as is got ready to meet it’s consist of passenger cars for it’s days work.

It was only when I looked back at these images that I realized that this steam locomotive, the former McCloud River Railroad No. 25, was the same locomotive featured in the famous Stand By Me scene filmed at the Lake Britton Bridge.

This well know locomotive was brought in an out of service over the years and headed up many railfan excursions. One such exclusion was in 1955, to celebration the opening of the Burney line. Number 25 was on point of the Golden Spike excursion from McCloud to Burney. We could surmise that No. 25 was the first steam locomotive to cross the Lake Britton Bridge.

No. 25 was sold and in 2011 she was moved from McLoud, Ca to Tillamook, Or. She is currently running on the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad in Garibaldi.

To think that this minor piece of cinema history, built in 1925, had not been scraped or put on static display in some park but was still a living and breathing locomotive that pulls a trainloads of passengers up the coast of Oregon really puts a smile on my face.

McCloud River Railway No. 25, under steam, getting ready for morning passenger service on the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad in Garibaldi, Oregon. This is the steam engine that comes barreling down on the four boys on the Lake Britton Bridge.
It is fitting that this piece of Stand By Me history ended up in Oregon because the majority of the film’s locations were filmed in Eugene, Brownsville, Junction City, and Cottage Grove, Oregon. One major difference between the novella and the film was that it’s setting was changed from Maine to Oregon.

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Mill Creek Resort

My base camp for my time in Lassen was Cabin Number 4 at the Mill Creek Resort.

The resort is located 12 miles south of the Lassen Volcanic National Park southern entrance. It was 25 miles from gas and groceries in the metropolis of Chester.

The resort was first opened in 1936 and featured a store, gas station, and a post office. The current resort has nine cabins, eight RV sights, and 17 tent campsites. The twelve acres includes a stretch of Mill Creek.

After almost six months of distance leaning one thing that really appealed to me about Cabin 4: no WiFi! I was more that ready to get away from screens and start to enjoy the rustic.

No more work email, useless YouTube videos, political ads, or any ads. Just a view from the front porch, a book, and my watercolor journal and sketching kit.

A sketch of cabins Five and Six at the Mill Creek Resort

The true test came on Wednesday evening when word came that PG&E was going to be shutting off the power because of high winds for three day. It was about to get really rustic!

One Wednesday I was in the middle of reading the poem “Traveling through the Dark” by William Stafford when the power went out at 7:35 PM. This was uncanny, irony of the highest order!

I turned on my headland and finished the poem which ends:

I thought hard for us all—my only swerving—,   
then pushed her over the edge into the river.

The unmistakable profile of the American dipper on the Mill Creek. The trail lead down the hill to the creekside.
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Clark’s Nutcracker

Being a birder, I always keep an eye out for birds, even when hiking, and not birding, is my primary aim. One might argue that a birder really never stops birding. I like to select a bird species as “Bird of the Trip”. This could be an iconic species or it could be a common species showing interesting behavior. The Clark’s nutcracker hits both of these targets.

The Corvids (not Covid) were well represented at Lassen. Common ravens patrolled the Lassen Volcanic National Park Highway, Steller’s Jay were seen at most locations. While I do love seeing these species, I can see them from the deck of my cabin in Santa Cruz. One Corvid encounter was a nice surprise, a family group of Canada jays (formally gray jay) forging on the ground near the Lassen Trail monument. The Canada Jay is a species that I do not see very often because they only occur in far Northern California.

The Clark’s nutcracker is an interesting bird for many reasons. When it was first seen by western eyes during the Lewis and Clark expedition in August 1805, William Clark first described a bird as a woodpecker. He wrote in his journal on August 22 1805:

I saw to day [a] Bird of the woodpecker kind which fed on Pine burs it’s Bill and tale white the wings black every other part.

It is odd that this Corvid, now bears the name of a man who misidentified the nutcracker. This bird is more a cracker of nuts than a pecker of wood!

This hearty corvid is found in the western United States, Clark’s first sighting was in present day Idaho and the bird is found at high altitude from 3,000 to 11,000 feet in elevation. I always keep an ear and eye open when I’m at altitude in the west. I usually hear them before I see them.

This was the case as I heading up the trail to Bumpass Hell on my first hike in Lassen. Off to my right, over a deep ravine, I heard the raucous call of the Clark’s nutcracker. A pair of these pied crows crossed over the trail and alighted on a rocky cliff. They stayed in sight for a few minutes and then crested the rise and dropped over the hill.

On another day I hiked out to Terrace and Shadow Lakes. I sat on the shore of Shadow Lake to have lunch. From the lake I had a great view of Lassen Peak and it’s twin reflection in the calm, still waters.

After six months of shelter in place and distance-learning, the solitude and stillness of Shadow Lake was exactly what I needed. No technology, no screens, just pen and paper and a perspective to recreate. I sketched the peak of Lassen.

A sketch of Lassen Peak I did while relaxing at Shadow Lake. I thought of adding watercolor but I just left the ink work. Most of this sketch in done with a brush pen.

Soon the silence was broken and up the the way, I heard the call of Clark’s “woodpecker”. I was captivated as I watched a pair of Clark’s nutcrackers hawking over the lake, catching insects in their dark bills. I was astonished by the liquidity of their flight as they quickly changed course to catch an insect.

One nutcracker flew down to a short conifer near me. It looked around and then flew down to the shoreline and took a quick drink. The nutcracker repeated itself two more times before returning to hawking insects.

The work ethic of this bird should be then envy of any fourth grader (and everyone else). In a study conducted in Tioga Pass (east of Yosemite Valley) an adult nutcracker was estimated to cache 89,000 pine seeds and a juvenile buried 34,000 seeds. They prefer the seeds of white bark pines, which are very high in calories. Like the California scrub-jay, the nutcracker is a feathered gardener.

A quick nutcracker sketch in the visitor’s book of Cabin No. 4 at the Mill Creek Reseort.
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Kings Creek Falls

When I pulled into the parking area of the trailhead of Kings Creek Falls at 8:30 AM, there were no other cars there.

One hiking guide listed this hike, in usage, as “heavy” but on this October Wednesday, I had the trail and the falls, all to myself.

The idiom, “the early bird gets the worm” is true for a reason. While others are sleeping in, having an extra pancake, or puttering around with gear, I was on the road by 7:40 AM. Nothing ruins an experience with nature than hordes of people. Yosemite Valley in June, for instance.

The weather was brisk in the early morning hours but the skies clear as I passed through the lovely golden meadows, bisected by Kings Creek. I was heading downstream, towards the 50 foot drop of the Kings Creek Falls.

I once heard that the difference between a creek and a brook is that you can jump a brook, without getting your feet wet. If I were to jump Kings Creek, even with a lively run up, I would land near the middle, with my boots fully immersed in creek. Kings Creek definitely was a creek verging on the edge of being river.

As I hiked, I shed a layer and sweat was beginning to line my brow. The morning was warming up and I came to a trail junction. The trail to the right was a steep and narrow rocky staircase which was oneway. The trail to the left was the trail that left the creek but eventually return to the water course and led to the recently installed King Creek Falls Overlook.

I could hear the roar of the waterfall before I saw it. In 2015, improvements were made to the Overlook area. I assume the building of a fence (featured in the sketch to the right) was to allow visitors to safely get a view of the falls without falling over the edge!

I picked my spot and started to sketch the falls. I kept the sketch loose, it is a sketch after all. I like to work in pen brush, leaving the white of the paper as the water and using the darkness of the pen brush to fill in the shadows and define forms.

During the whole sketch, I had the overlook to myself. When I finished I walked downstream to get a lower perspective of the falls. These falls were certainly impressive but later in my trip I would see some of the most amazing falls in the state of California. (I’m not talking about Yosemite Falls).

Now it was time for one of the surprisingly rewarding parts of the hike, the return journey along the Kings Creek Cascades on a steep and narrow stone stairway.

A view of from the return journey on the stone staircase.

It was an invigorating climb, with many places of wonderment and rest. The narrow canyon was filled with the sound of water rushing over rock.

On my return I encountered a trickle of people, heading for whence I came. They had finished their pancakes and their gear was now in order. The more people I passed on the way out, the more I appreciated my one-on-one time with one of Lassen’s most popular sites: Kings Creek Falls.

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Lassen’s Hydrothermal Features

The magma in Lassen is still there; visibly in the form of rocks and boulders scattered around the park. But molten magma still exists below the surface.

The magma is the same that fueled the eruption of Lassen, just over 100 years ago. In places, the magma hyper-warms the ground water and rises to the surface through hydrothermal features, reaching temperatures of 200°F. In this sense, parts of Lassen resembles our first National Park: Yellowstone.

The most well-known hydrothermal feature in Lassen and also the most popular is Bumpass Hell. This is a must do hike for a Lassen visit which explains its popularity.

The Bumpass Hell Boardwalk. And not a soul in sight!

I headed out early on a Tuesday morning and I had the trail almost to myself. There was one couple that was just ahead of me. If I would have left later in the morning or in the afternoon I probably would have not have been able to find a parking spot in the trailhead parking lot. Even in October!

The hike is a moderate 3 mile, out and back hike with great views of the south of peaks such as Brokeoff Mountain.

Once you crest a rise, you seem to be in a different universe. Bumpass Hell is a visceral experience. Sight: the steam rising into the morning sunlight and the intense earthy colors surrounding you. Smell: the rotten egg stench of sulfur, and sound: the bubbly cauldron burbble of intense heat erupting to the surface. We are definitely not in Kansas anymore!

Another location that is a release valve of Lassen’s subterranean heat is in a under-visited area of this under-visited National Park, located in the Warner Valley.

To get there you must drive east to the rural metropolis of Chester (compared to the blip of Mineral [population 292]). From Chester (population 2,116) you head north back into the National Park on a road that, at first, is nicely paved and then gets a bit rutty before becoming completely unpaved for the final three miles.

I was finally at the Warner Valley trailhead at the campground, which was now closed for the season.

The most exciting thing about this trailhead is that it joins up with a part of the Pacific Crest Trail. The PCT is 2,650 miles long, reaching from the Mexican border to the Canadian border. This hike passes through the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. A through hiker would take about five months to complete the trail. It’s midpoint lines close to the metropolis of Chester. The midpoint is also the meeting place of the Cascade and the Sierra Nevada Mountain ranges.

Near the midpoint if the Pacific Crest Trail.

So now I can say that I hiked the PCT, well a very small part of it anyway, from the trailhead to another one of Lassen’s exciting hydrothermal features: Boiling Springs Lake. This is an apt name for this clay colored lake that, in places, resembles a witches cauldron.

Smoke on the water at Boiling Springs Lake.

As I approached the lake, steam rose up into the morning sun and as I got closer, but not too close, I started to hear the bubbling of the mud and smell the tell tale smell of sulfur.

I hike halfway around the lake to a rise on the far side of the lake. From my position I had Boiling Springs Lake in the foreground and Lassen Peak in the background. And I did what any sketcher do, I sketched!

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Lassen Volcanic National Park

Lassen was the final National Park in California that I needed to visit in order to visit al the National Parks in my home state. It always seemed less well known and remote than other parks in the state, with the exception of Channel Islands National Park because you have to take a one hour boat ride to get there. California has the most National Parks in the Union with nine.

Lassen Volcanic is an apt name for this National Park because volcanos and Lassen Peak dominate the landscape of this northeastern part of California.

A pre-trip sketch of the four types of volcanos and their examples, found in Lassen Volcanic National Park: Cinder Cone (Cinder Cone) Composite (Brokeoff Mountain), Shield (Prospect Peak), and Plug Dome (Lassen Peak). Lassen Peak is the largest example of a Plug Dome volcano in the world.

This 106,000 acre park features all four types of volcanos and Lassen Peak represents the last volcano to erupt in California. Even through that was just over one hundred years ago, that eruption, or more accurately, eruptions, left its mark all over the landscape. This is easily seen in the part of the park northeast of Lassen Peak called the Devastated Area.

The view of Lassen Peak from the Devastated Area.

The short interpretive trail features giant boulders that had travelled over three miles to find their angle of repose after an avalanche on May 19, 1915. Some of the massive boulders are estimated to have travelled at over one hundred miles an hours on their journey from the summit.

Lassen was active between 1914 and 1917 but it’s largest eruption occurred on May 22, 1915 when a massive eruption sent gas and ash 30,000 feet into the air. The eruption could be seen 50 miles away to the west in Anderson. The flows headed down the Lost and Hat Creek waterways, destroying everything in it’s path. This is now the area called the Devastated Area. The trees and vegetation has grown back but the large volcanic boulders tell of a turbulent time.

I picked a spot on the ground near the trail and sketched a large reddish dacite boulder formed about 27,000 years ago. Reading about this boulder’s journey helped understand these erratic rocks. It’s reddish hue reflected the origins of it’s birth, the reds I was seeing at the peak of Lassen.

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Ishi

Monday October 12, 2020

On this Indigenous People’s Day I visited a historical marker to one of the most well known indigenous person in California.

I remember the stories my grandma told me of the man in a suit that she would see in the local corner grocery store in the the inner Sunset neighborhood in San Francisco. He was different but covered in the threads of the times. Although she had seen him as a child, the story she told me in her later years showed what an impression that experience had made on her.

This was the man named “Ishi”, the last surviving member of the Yahi People. And I was going to the point of his intersection with the modern western world.

How did he come to live in San Francisco? It began on an August evening at about 7:30 in eastern Oroville.

On August 29, 1911, Ishi collided with he western world when he was captured near Charles Ward’s Slaughterhouse (note the irony) in Oroville, California. He was captured and put into the Oroville jail (supposedly for his own protection) when the first photograph of him was taken of.

Ishi’s people, the Yahi, had been diminished by attacks by other native tribes and by white settlers who came to California to seek their fortunes in the Gold Rush. His small family group died out and he wandered down from the foothills, tired and dehydrated, to look for food when he was captured.

Ishi at the Oroville jail.

In September, Ishi made his way to San Francisco where he stayed at the University of California Museum of Anthropology at Parnassus and was studied by an anthropologist named Alfred Kroeber. Kroeber learned from Ishi about his culture and language (no living person spoke his language). His voice was recorded as he talked, sang, and told stories.

One favorite story is about the time that Ishi was riding in a car through Golden Gate Park and he made the driver stop the car as he spotted California quail by the side of the road, a bird Ishi would have been very familiar with. Today, there is only one quail remaining in Golden Gate Park, a lone male, which local birders have named “Ishi”.

Ishi’s contact with the modern world proved to be his downfall. He was often sick with western diseases. He died on March 25, 1916 of tuberculosis.

The area where Ishi was found is now a quiet residential neighborhood on a quiet street. The slaughterhouse in gone and the area has been built up with residential, single family houses. The calls of the northern flicker, California quail, and the acorn woodpecker may be the only things recognizable from 1911. At least to Ishi.

Now there is a historical marker, the genesis behind it’s creation was a high school teacher and his son, who wondered why there was not a historical marker about the last of the Yahi: Ishi. And because of their efforts, there now is California Registered Historical Landmark No. 809.

Looking at this marker now, I reflect on our complicated interactions with the native people of California. It is often a tragic story but also with bits of light and wonder. Like the time a little girl saw the man from Parnassus in the local store. A story she would tell, many, many years later to her grandson.

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Lassen Volcanic N. P.

Before most trips I like to create a map of my travels in my journal to help me get the lay of the land. For my fall break I decided to keep it local and visit one of California’s least visited National Parks: Lassen Volcanic National Park. This remains the last National Park in California that I have yet to visit.

This National Park gets about 500,000 annual visitors compared to Yosemite’s 4.4 million. It can be hard to find solitude among the masses at Yosemite, which is California’s most visited National Park. So I was looking forward to the solitude I would find on the trails, lakes, and meadows at Lassen during the fall.

Volcanoes dominate the landscape, history, and name of Lassen Volcanic National Park. The volcano in question is the last volcano to erupt in California and only the second volcano (the other is Oregon’s Mount St. Helens) in the Continental United States to erupt in the 20th century. This of course is Lassen Peak.

This is a sketch taken from a famous Benjamin Loomis photograph of Lassen eruption in 1914. This is also the first sketch in my Stillman & Birn Zeta Series watercolor journal. I love breaking in a new journal and I hope to fill it’s pages with Lassen sketches.

The first major eruption of Lassen occurred on May 22, 1915 and ash was spewed high in the air drifting as far east as 280 miles. Lassen continued to be active until 1921. In August of 1916, Lassen became a National Park and Lassen became a sleeping giant.

The landscape around Lassen still show signs of the last eruption in the early years of the 20th century. I can’t wait to sketch this volcanic history.

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Monterey Bay Classic Pelagic

The first time I remember going out on a boat on Monterey Bay I was in high school. That year (1988, I think), numbers of blue whales were being attracted by krill into the nutrient-rich bay.

My dad and I took a whale watch boat out of Monterey’s Old Fisherman’s Wharf and it was the first time I set eyes on the world’s largest animal. I was able to take a few pictures of the whale’s blue-gray mass. Later, I told my biology teacher that I had seen blue whales in Monterey Bay. He didn’t believe me, but I showed him pictures to prove it!

In the ensuring 30 years, I have been on a few Monterey Bay pelagic birding and whale trips. But it had been a while so, when I saw that Alvaro’s Adventures was taking a trip to the bountiful Monterey Bay, I signed up.

I love Monterey because of it’s place in California’s history. The American flag was first raised in Monterey. Our state constitution was written (in English and Spanish) at Colton Hall, a short walk from Monterey Wharf.

What I don’t love about Monterey is it’s wharf. This is full of tourist junk shops and cheesy nautical themed restaurants but it’s saving grace is to be found at the end of the wharf: the companies that lead nature tours (mainly for whales) out into the Monterey Bay Sanctuary.

The orca sign at the dock to Monterey Bay Whale Watch and our masked-leader below, Alvaro. I had seen a pod of orca in the bay a few years ago. I wouldn’t mind seeing the world’s largest dolphin again.

I found myself here at a quarter to seven at a wharf that was slowly coming to life, which would be a jarring contrast on our return later that afternoon when hordes filled the wharf, having not got the note about social distancing.

A few pelagic birders were milling about. You could always tell them apart, they had on birding hats, often displaying some national or international birding destination. They usually had optics around their neck and were nibbling on ginger snaps or cookies and thumbing through bird guides. Some where even checking out the local western gulls and pelicans.

Today our boat was manned (this doesn’t sound right) by two women. She was a large boat, the 70 foot Sea Wolf II and was made, not for fishing, but whale watching, a perfect vessel for pelagic birding! Of course the real Sea Wolf of the seas is the orca aka the killer whale.

There was plenty of leg room on the Sea Wolf II. The red tape on the rail was placed six feet apart to encourage social distancing. One of these lines of perspective is straight. My money is on the horizon. The Sea Wolf had lots of places to stand or sit with clear views of Big Blue.

We boarded and before long where heading out into Monterey Bay. The swells were high and I enjoyed riding the rhythms of the sea like a nautical bucking bronco, a raucous sea horse! A few members of birders joined the Feeding-the Fish Club. Luckily, touch wood, I have never been a member of this club.

The reason Monterey Bay is a legendary location for pelagic life is the marine canyon, the Monterey Submarine Canyon, that bisects the bay. This canyon starts just to the west of Moss Landing. The canyon, at certain places, is a mile in depth and is the deepest submarine canyon on the west coast; a Grand Canyon of the Pacific. This canyon produces nutrient-ruch waters that attracts cetaceans (from blue whales to orca) and pelagic birds. This also means that you do not have to travel too far out to see pelagic species.

Today we headed south to search the waters off the coast of Big Sur. I told Alvaro that I would be checking the skies for California condor! (there is a nerdy bird joke in there.) The pelagic birding in the bay had not been as prolific in recent weeks, possibly because of water temps, so Alvaro directed the crew of the Sea Wolf to head south. And it turned out to be a good decision.

Within 30 minutes of leaving port, we had our first pelagic species, a lone sooty shearwater. This trip was dominated by the presence of pink-footed shearwaters. Alvaro noted that “weirdo” shearwaters (aka rare) associate with pink-footed and not sooty shearwaters. I could only hope for a Manx!

A little further out, we were upon a pod of Risso’s dolphins. These gray dolphins have dorsal fins that resemble female orcas. Our captain called attention to one individual Risso’s, an albino, named by whale watchers as “Casper”.

Risso’s dolphin. These dolphin don’t seem to enjoy bowriding like the gregarious Pacific white-sided dolphin. But a great dolphin to see nonetheless.

Further south we encountered sweet spots with many shearwaters, a smattering of ashy storm-petrels, and some south polar skuas. One skua was being chased by a Heerman’s gull, oh how the tables had turned. In this general direction we saw our first, of about ten, black-footed albatross. We added two species of jaegers to our list.

I spent most of my time in the stern of the boat. It it usually is less crowded, less wet, and less turbulent in the back. Once we headed back north again, I migrated to the bow of the Sea Wolf. Here is was important to keep at least three points of balance and attempt to hold binoculars to your eyes. At times, I wore my binos like a dense necklace and scanned the waters with the naked eye. This is a wide angle lens approach to pelagic birding. This approach has payoffs.

I spotted a chocolaty shearwater crossing our bow from right to left. “Shearwater”, I called out. Alvaro, who was standing to my left, got bins on it and proclaimed, “Flesh-footed!” It really does pay off to stand next to someone who knows more than you do. It always makes you look better. This was the only flesh-footed shearwater we saw on the trip and only the second one I had ever seen.

Something similar happened a dozen miles later when I spotted a grouping of four birds. It looked like two phalaropes bookended by two California gulls. One of the spotters identified the two birds as red phalaropes. The seas, swells, and light can play tricks on the birder, even the most seasoned pelagic birder. As we came closer the birds were not phalaropes but the smaller Napoleon’s gull. They showed their dark bills and ear muffs. These small gulls were a pleasant pelagic surprise. I have never seen this gull in open ocean but on terra firma.

It was surprising to see a few passerines so far out at sea. The closest these birds might come to water was a bird bath. An American pipit strafed the boat and then later a golden-crowned sparrow crossed our stern. We also spotted an unidentified sparrow that was laboring, inches above the waters. It was flying towards us. Some passerines hitch rides back to port but this sparrow did not look long for this world. It most likely had gotten lost flying over the bay and this shortcut can prove deadly. We soon lost sight of the sparrow, it disappear behind the swells.

We soon made a course to the west as we headed back to port. Here we saw more inshore species like common murre, Brandt’s cormorant, and brown pelican. The latter species it’s truly one the of the iconic inshore west-coast species. Brought close to extinction by the pesticide DDT, they now flourish in the Pacific. A line of pelicans approached from our port side. Such a common species here, now, but is there no other bird in flight, over the seas that is more soothing to soul and meditative, than a line brown pelicans?

To me, there never has been, nor will there ever be a species that says “Monterey Bay” than the brown pelican.

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Pioneer Canyon Pelagic

For months, Grasshopper Sparrow has been dreaming of going on a pelagic to see some of the iconic west coast species: shearwaters, storm-petrels, and the mighty black-footed albatross! And finally the morning came for a September Alvaro’s Adventures pelagic trip to the continental self from Pillar Point Harbor.

A loose sketch of a budding birder checking out the birds on the breakwater as we head out of Pillar Point Harbor.

We arrived at the harbor half an hour before the meeting time of 6:30 AM. I felt like a child on Christmas Eve, I was excited and I rarely sleep well before a pelagic. Pelagic trips are so exciting because you never know what you’re going to see.

This pelagic produced some avian highlights but on this trip the cetaceans really shined.

A loose pen brush sketch from the stern of the Huli Cat. Not an easy thing to do with the rolling and rocking of the boat in open sea. That’s why it’s loose!

As we headed out into the foggy bay we saw many rafts of common murres. It took a while to see a sooty shearwater and our first was a lone individual, strange for such a gregarious species. As we headed further out we saw more sootys and then our first pink-footed shearwater. A bird misinterpreted by an elderly woman on the trip as a “pink” shearwater, the flamingo of the sea. We came upon small rafts of red-necked phalaropes. Then we saw our first storm-petrel, an ashy.

We were all anticipating the first appearance of an albatross. Once the depth went from 200 feet dropping down to 1,000 and more, we knew we had passed over the continental shelf and were over Pioneer Canyon. This is where pelagic life really intensifies. These were the waters of the albatross. But we didn’t see any of these monarchs of the open seas (well not yet, anyway).

We where not over the submarine canyon long before we were surrounded by dolphins, hundreds of them. Pacific white-sided dolphins same toward the Huli Cat, riding our bow wake and jumping in our stern wake. Mixed in with this large pod were the northern right-whale dolphin, it’s finless back can be easily confused with sea lions. The large pod seemed to seek out our boat and many dolphins where fully breaching out of the water! Their playfulness in water reminded me of ravens in the air.

We next encountered a pair of humpback whales. As we cruised along the continental shelf we came to our best whale sighting of the day. Two blue whales that we kept pace with for about 10 minutes. This is the largest animal to have ever lived on planet earth and it is always amazing to see this leviathan of the Oceans. In fact, there were two of three other blue whales in the area, their tall, straight blow gave away their positions. The two whales would pause on the surface, perhaps resting before diving down, showing their massive fluke as they searched the nutrient rich waters for krill.

The mighty blue whale. We saw their flukes as they dived down.

Later, to our starboard, a young humpback whale entertained us by breaching (jumping) out of the water. We were able to watch about ten breaches from this playful whale.

We came to a group of gulls and shearwaters on the water, perhaps feeding on the remainder of a sea lion meal when Alvaro yelled out the word we were yearning to hear, “Albatross!” A lone black-footed albatross passed us on our port side, giving us great views of it’s effortless flight. We later saw one other albatross but this pelagic was marked by the presence of some amazing cetaceans.

And Grasshopper also got some great lifers, both pelagic birds and marine mammals!