Here’s a collection of some interesting things we saw over the past few weeks. Have you ever noticed a seagull’s nostrils or “nares”? You can see right through them to the other side.
There was a large snake (gopher I believe) in the parking lot at the beach. I’ve heard they’re more common at beaches than we might imagine, but this is the first one I’ve seen in all my years there.
This mocking bird amazed me with its courageous attack on our black lab. It must have had a nest in the tree. I’ve never seen anything like it. Our dog was oblivious to it.
Someone brought these adorable literary tea bags to book group. Apparently they’re available at Trader Joe’s, but I haven’t seen them yet at ours. “Wear the old coat, buy the new book.” Amen!
Here’s a picture of the stairs down to the beach, also a natural cave where occasionally, ignorantly adventurous people die each year by not understanding tides. There’s an interesting bridge beyond it and some dolphins in the water while the kids surfed.
We attended a wedding at the Jewel of Ortega, tucked up in the mountains off Ortega Highway. What a beautiful, unexpected spot!
Here’s the beautiful underside of a fence lizard the kids caught up by Mt. Baldy. And that nettle under it is something beyond comprehension – it feels like a wasp bite, as if it shot stingers at you or poisonous darts. I couldn’t believe how painful it was! And it lasted all day until evening. I wasn’t able to identify it, but it is powerful!
My daughter captured this video of what I’m pretty sure is a leopard shark in Laguna. They also saw shovel nosed guitar fish.
My son saw this sea lion a few days ago while they were having a bonfire at the beach. There have been reports of a toxic algae bloom causing sea lions and dolphins to come up on shore acting strange. This one seems confused and has bite marks on its rear end. I contacted PMMC and sent them the video and location of the poor thing. The kids were also told to get out of the water today when they were surfing because of an aggressive sea lion. My son saw a dead one floating in the water and my other two kids saw one laying on the beach dead a little bloody with a towel over it. I’m not sure if they were the same one or whether it was the aggressive sea lion they were talking about or even if it was related to the algae bloom, but it appears they’ve re-opened. It’s common for sea lions to pop up around them in the water, but they’ve never been aggressive.
That’s it for this update!