PCC(E) here; I’ve just come back from the most awesome whale-watching trip ever: we saw dozens of humpback whales ((Megaptera novaeangliae) feeding, lunge-feeding, breaching, and slapping their tails, along with gazillions of seals helping eat the fish, as well as many species of birds. Also a pod of dolphins accompanying our boat. It couldn’t have been a better trip, and I’ll post pictures and videos when I return.
In the meantime, a quick duck report via Anna. Our pair of mallards have been skittish for a while, and yesterday they both disappeared from the pond for a whole day. As always, I was sure they’d gone for good, though the Duck Manual says they don’t head south until the first freeze or snow.
Today, however, in an email headed “They’re back! How they toy with us”, Honey and her beau James are back in the pond eating away. Here’s a photo.
This duck-related anxiety will do me in, I swear. It’s like having your kid go off to college, and then returning a few days later, and then going back, and so on.
I’ve grown to really enjoy the duck reports. I see them pop up in my in box and I perk up. I laugh a little at myself about it. Maybe it’s because I haven’t been able to get out birding myself this summer. I don’t know what I’ll do when they finally leave for the winter.
Hilarious, my reaction exactly. And this time we get tidbits of whale sightings!
I enjoy it even more when it happens way past the time when PCC(E) usually posts. I was just on-line paying a bill when I saw the late Duck Report. We’re both in PST now; in Chicago, our host rarely posts this late.
We need a live duckcam like cameras that are set up for other birds like owls, puffins, ospreys etc!
I looked at the top two pictures for five minutes trying to see ducks in them.
At Moss landing, did you get to Phil’s Seafood Market and Restaurant, a real institution among locals? Also, the smaller (but less crowded) Phil’s Snack Shack has amazing fish (and calamari) sandwiches. On the sightseeing side, the Elkhorn Slough Wildlife Safari is a good complement to the whale watching.
No, we didn’t; we ate at a Mexican place that was pretty good, though.
I’m wondering (again) if Honey has become more skittish because of PCC(E)’s absences as well as the disrupted natural cover around the perimeter of the pond (since the pond people cut back the cat tails etc).
No, she’s been more skittish this entire season than she was last year, when she would regularly walk up to me and eat out of my hand. No chance of that this year. I don’t know whether it’s the stress of raising eight ducklings or what.
The Guardian is reporting this morning on the rather sad story of Trevor Mallard, the lonesome duck of Niue, a small atoll in the Pacific:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/07/trevor-the-lonely-duck-gets-tiny-island-of-niue-in-a-flap
It’s a mystery how Trevor reached Niue, but the locals have adopted him and are working hard to keep his little pond — actually, more of a puddle — filled with water so he has somewhere to swim.
My son has recently returned from California, whilst there he went Whale watching in Monterey,and he said there were lots of Humpbacks, breaching etc, and they had just missed a pod of Blue Whales that had traversed the Bay. There is also a resident Pod of Orcas I believe that prey on the Calves of the Whales travelling North to the waters off BC where they feed.Magical!
The Avicii video is like a John Galt fantasy for beautiful people.
If any of us could come back after death as a
chosen life form. I’m sure my best fried, Marge, would be a sea otter. She always had loved them and I can’t help but think of her when I see them.