The scope: Southern California, specifically the Santa Monica region, specifically in the months of April and May, specifically on the hikes we went on post-Laguna-beach-wedding (congrats Abram) and specifically as captured by our (at least in my case) crappy phone cameras.
Working from home in California was no walk in the park by the time the second week rolled around, and also we failed to feed ourselves an adequate amount on this trip (think: Romaine lettuce with some olives and feta for two whole dinners), but despite all that the hikes at 3 pm after work were spectacular.
Also full disclosure the title is a bit click-baity in that you will have to suffer through some nice landscape photos to beef out this post because I don't have too many actual animal photos. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Anyway, away we go!
6 We were on a mountain deep in Malibu Springs (specifically the Mishe Mokwa loop) and wildflowers were blooming all over the hillside. It was hot, and sunny, and we had 2 liters of water to split between the two of us for the entire 5 mile hike. Very poor planning on our part.
Sweating buckets, carefully rationing our water in measured sips according to our milage, we wended our way down rocky slopes, slipping on dust on the way down. The views were beautiful, but like the panting husky we passed on the trail (I guess the owners didn't get the "no dogs allowed" memo), we needed shade.
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| Yup, good views. |
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| Lots of flowers |
Miraculously, the downhill lead to a grove-y valley with actual real-live trees that provided shade and the most decrepit-looking picnic table you've ever seen that we sat on to enjoy our warm moist sandwiches.
And, there, we spotted this little guy:
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Can you spot him? In several pictures I legitimately can't. He's a weird little bird with a spiky head, and unsuccessfully tried to take a nibble at our chips before flitting away.
Number 6: Spiky-head bird
5 Another bird, this time in the Point Mugu peak trail. We went at sunset after work and were treated to a STEEP STEEP climb (with like 10 middle aged people jogging past us on the way up) and ridiculous ocean views.
I heard the sound of wings whirring like helicopter blades and, my primordial insect-revulsion triggered, I yelped thinking it was a bee or something.
No! A hummingbird! They are as fast and as capable as hovering as the stories say, and they were simply adorable. I am not a capable photographer so I do not have a picture of one for you but you can see ones very much like the ones we saw here. Yes, that was plural! We saw many of these humbuzzers on the way up. A hummingbird may not be big news to those who grew up in more nature-y settings than I (Doga was not as impressed) but for someone who's been in cities all her life -- it was cool.
Number 5: All the hummingbirds.
4 You get to the Channel Islands national park by taking a ferry, and there's only one ferry service that operates boats there. You'd think that such a monopolistic setup would lead to a truly atrocious ferry-riding experience -- not so!
The day we were set to go, we called the service to make sure our ferries were still on schedule (as they had asked us to do) and the automated message that morning reported that the ferries were still on but that the "ocean would be rough" and that we could call to reschedule if that was a problem.
We decided to take our chances and showed up bright and early to Ventura harbor to board the little ferry.
True to their word, it was a rough one hour ride to Scorpion Cove. We were sitting in the back of the boat, pitching and rolling, and I had my eyes peeled for a whale -- it was the tail end of the migrating season for the grey whale, and dammit if I was going to miss it.
The view from the back was not so good, so at some point I made the perilous journey to the front of the boat, gripping the railings so I wouldn't be pitched overboard. Now that was fun. Every time the boat hit a wave we free fell to the ocean below and insane amounts of water would spray into the boat, completely soaking me in my rain jacket and dad-cargo-pants. It was the pirate ship amusement park ride, except constantly and with real water. Honestly, insanely fun.
I stayed at the bow until one of the ferry operators yelled over the roar of the waves that it was getting too choppy and they were closing it.
And alas, I did not see a whale.
Skip ahead eight hours or so.
The ferry ride back, we were assured by the ferry crew, would be less rough since we'd be "surfing the waves" instead of crashing against them. And so it was! Very pleasant. Just to be sure, though, Doga and I took seats at the top of the boat instead of at the bottom.
The boat started stalling around halfway through the trip, and over the announcements we heard that a "pod" was coming our way!
Alas, still not whales -- but dolphins! A whole swarm of them, jumping out of the water and coming closer and closer to the boat before frolicking away. Kudos to the ferry company for getting some dolphin watching time in for us.
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| View of Santa Cruz from the boat |
Number 4: Not whales but close
3 We were walking along Point Dume, a beautiful little expanse of sand dunes and golden cliffs. Example:
When we heard the sort of arfing and barking that I had only heard at Sea World before. Could it be?
Indeed it was. Sea lions (at least, we're pretty sure they were sea lions after watching this video about a sea lion taking a walk at the zoo).
There's a chance they were actually seals but examining our live photos we're pretty sure they were sea lions.
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2 The penultimate member of our list is another Point Dume find. A word about the setting: I later found out that this is the very same beach that my friend from LA's parents would take him as a kid. They called it the "secret beach." Fair enough. It was really too pretty to be so empty.
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| Ok this might have been a different beach from the actual "secret beach" but it was definitely in Point Dume and definitely the vibe. |
We saw this leggy little bird running to and from the waves that looked a lot like the birds from that Pixar short. Doga, being the avid phone photographer that he is turning out to be, rushed amok to try to get a better shot of it, and with the ridiculously high-res photo quality of his Google phone came up with:
IMO impressive!
Number 2: Leggy bird (a lot of birds on this list I'm realizing)
1 There's only one possible contender for the first spot on the list. It's really a no-brainer. It's the whole package: super cute, super rare, and super photogenic. I'm talking about the Island Fox. It's a fox species that exists only on the Channel Islands (apparently a lack of predators there made the fox uniquely adorable and docile and miniature).
It's a mystery as to how the fox actually first got there. Some speculate that humans brought them over when they first came to the islands, but in my opinion a far more fun theory is that the foxes "rafted" to the island -- this is a real thing in biology, apparently -- some natural disaster or something pulls a tree with a bunch of living things on it into the ocean where it floats until it hits another landmass. I guess when you're talking on the scale of millions of years the odds of this happening are not insanely low, but it still feels insane.
Anyway, before I show you pictures of this little guy you have to endure some glamor shots of the Channel Islands. We did a pretty big hike there starting along the coast with some spectacular ocean views:
Then walking inland into a valley and then up a very large hill.
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| Valley |
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| Hill (the top) |
The fox we saw while we were having lunch on a campground. It came out delicately -- but not cautiously, this thing is bold -- and pawed around the grass of the camp tables looking for morsels. It was the size of a small cat and just about as cute. After it had its fill of examining us it went to the water pump and took the most delicate sips of the water.
Wow. When you first disembark from the ferry (see #4 on this list) they tell you that taking animals from the island is forbidden. At the time we were a bit confused. But looking at the fox -- we understood. The impulse to stuff that little thing in our bags and raise it as our own was INCREDIBLE.
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