On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Albatrossity
Many of you have no doubt visited the California coast, and on that coast there is no more iconic stretch than the Big Sur section. Stretching from Carmel to San Simeon, it is one of the most visited tourist destinations in the country, and rightfully so. Periodically the coast highway (California Highway 1) is closed by mudslides somewhere along the way, and that is true when I visited. A prodigious slide about 40 miles south of Carmel closed the road there, and it is not expected to reopen until sometime in 2025, at the earliest.
Nevertheless, my buddy Mark, his wife Jana, and I ventured out to see if we could find some birds (target species – California Condor) and see some scenery along that scenic coast. Here are some of the images from that day. Spoiler – We did not find any condors, alas.
We had a beautiful day for the trip. The fog cleared in mid-morning, and scenic vistas were plentiful. Here is a look north, with the famous Bixby Creek Bridge in the distance. Click here for larger image.
The beach at the mouth of the Little Sur River offered another scenic vista opportunity. Click here for larger image.
Coastal Redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) reach the southernmost limit of their native range along this coast. About five miles north of the road closure was a good place to get out and appreciate them, The walk along Partington Creek in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park heads up into a redwood grove. Blue sky and redwood trees are an unusual combination in my experience, so it was a fine walk Click here for larger image.
An open meadow area at the trailhead had some cool plants and butterflies. This Woodland Skipper (Ochlodes sylvanoides) posed nicely for its portrait. Click here for larger image.
Brown Pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis) are ubiquitous along this coast, and it was interesting to get some photos of them from the top of the cliffs. Two adults (with the white heads) leading two juveniles (dark heads) out to fish for breakfast. Click here for larger image.
The lighthouse at Point Sur was in and out of the fog, which had returned by mid-afternoon. This lighthouse is still operational, and can be visited by tourists as well. Click here for larger image.
On the way back we took an alternate route inland, which threaded though some more creeks and redwood groves. Dark-eyed Juncos (Junco hyemalis) were abundant at some of these places, and almost all of these were the subspecies known as Oregon Junco (J. h. oreganus), which is uncommon here in Flyover Country. I may have taken too many pictures of these guys… Click here for larger image.
Our alternate route also passed through some highlands, which were good places to see another subspecies that is uncommon here in Flyover Country, the western subspecies of the Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis calurus). These are more darkly pigmented than the redtails I see here in the summer, and with a more generally rufous tone in their plumage. Here is a fine specimen, representing the subspecies very well. Click here for larger image.
Here in Flyover Country we have one species of titmouse, the Tufted Titmouse. California has this one, the Oak Titmouse (Baeolophus inornatus). True to its specific epithet, this non-ornate bird used to be lumped with the bird currently known as Juniper Titmouse and was known as the Plain Titmouse. And it is plain; the slight yellow-green tint on this bird is an artifact from the green leafy bower it was perched in. Click here for larger image.
Another ubiquitous and noisy resident of California, the California Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma californica) is also a species derived from a taxonomic split. This bird and the similar Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jay were formerly lumped together and called Western Scrub-Jay. These guys are common in urban area, and can become quite tame (and bold). Click here for larger image.
YY_Sima Qian
Great pics! I’ve done the drive a couple of times, beautiful scenery.
SteveinPHX
Thank you for the photographs!
Gloria DryGarden
Incredible bird portraits.
Betty
Love the scenery and the birds, especially the pelican group.
Chris T.
That combination is easily obtained in some of the state and local parks in the SFBayArea. Reinhardt Redwood Regional Park is particularly good for this. It’s not a long drive from Oakland Airport…
Interesting side note about the lighthouses: several were built before they figured out they had to put them low on the coast, to slip under the fog.
Winter Wren
Great captures of beautiful vistas! The lighthouse through the fog is particularly dramatic.
MCat
Thank you. Marvelous pictures!
stinger
Juncos and jays and titmice! Great photos all. I lived in Monterey for a year, studying at DLI, and I guess my focus was elsewhere — all the landscapes here are new to me. Beautiful!
frosty
I love the picture of the lighthouse and the fog. Sorry you didn’t see a condor. I saw two in Pinnacles National Park two years ago; it was the highlight of the trip. I got a couple of crappy pictures with a 200mm lens, but good enough to confirm they weren’t turkey vultures.
The ranger said we were lucky to see them. They range from Big Sur to where we were and there’s no way to predict where they’ll be from one day to the next.
Interstadial
Really nice landscape photos, great bird photos, and enjoyable reading. Brings back memories of that coast, which I haven’t visited in a long time despite living only hours away.
Harry
So happy to see you are using Bluesky. We’re all there now.
BigJimSlade
That Coastal Redwoods picture looks a bit like the picture I have on one of my credit cards… because when I first got the card, I sent in a picture for them to use from the same park :-)
I see things like that Woodland Skipper here in the Santa Monica Mountains – they remind me of fuzzy fighter jets.
Nice view of the jay, complete with eyelashes! And I like the Bixby picture where it’s not the star – wonderful view up the coast.
way2blue
When an undergrad at UCSC, I took a biogeography class from the iconic Ray Collett. (An all day field trip each week; we’d check his shoes before getting on the bus to see what we were in for… loafers meant easy walking; hiking boots—more challenging). We hiked up Cone Peak one outing, in part, because the unusual bedrock hosts some unusual plants.) Cone Peak is known for garnet charnockite. Next time you visit—check out the beach below for garnet sands. Tiny dodecahedrons…
Origuy
I mentioned in your last post that I’d seen a red-shouldered hawk at Asilomar, north of Big Sur. Here it is.
El Cruzado
For condor sighting you’re more likely to luck out around Pinnacles National Park since many of them nest around there.
+1 to all the other recommendations. The visit to Point Sur lighthouse was quite interesting as a time capsule of another era.
Albatrossity
@El Cruzado: Yes, Pinnacles is a great place to see condors. We didn’t go there because the best location requires a pretty strenuous 5 mile hike, and my lungs are not up to that level of effort.
I have seen condors previously in AZ and UT, as well as in CA, so I wasn’t looking for a lifer. It would have been cool to see them at Grimes Point, over the ocean, but perhaps another time and another month will be better. In the meantime, we had a great day along that gorgeous stretch of coastline.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
Thanks for the post and enjoyed seeing so many of our local birds.
sempronia
The High Peaks trail at Pinnacles is lousy with condors. They’re huge, and they’re tagged with giant purple numbers. I got some good pictures with a cell phone camera shooting through a binoculars lense. Not Albatrossity quality, but very decent casual picture-taking quality.
StringOnAStick
@Albatrossity: We had condors fly within several feet of our heads in Patagonian Chile; you automatically duck because the size is so impressive!
I loved the subtle colors on the fuzzy back of the meadow skipper. All the photos and subject matter are quite grand!
dp
That is one of my very favorite places in the world.
Jim Appleton
I saw a condor in late 1963 in Monterey seeing the Monarchs. Remember them both vividly at age 2.75.
Jim Appleton
@Jim Appleton: Shortly after JFK assassination, which I also vividly recall.