Author Archives: Jeanne Jackson

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Jennifer Massey saw this beautiful, male American Kestrel perched near her Sea Ranch home.

Another day she found him hovering as he searched for a meal.

American Kestrels are North America's smallest falcons but they are fierce hunters of insects and other small animals. They use their long tail feathers to help them hover in the air, as Jennifer's second photo shows. Their call isn't very musical, in fact it sounds like someone laughing to me. See what you think, as you can listen at this link at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/American_Kestrel/sounds

Thanks to Jennifer for allowing me to share her photos with you here.

We had a couple of storms move through today and our rain gauge shows .96 inches. Mushrooms are popping!

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Craig Tooley recently trained his camera on a beautiful bird, which is called a Western Meadowlark.

They can be found in grasslands and meadows, pastures also. They are members of the Blackbird family and they are insect eaters. In other words, you won't find this robin-sized bird at a seed feeder. They have a flute-like call, which you can hear at this link: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Western_Meadowlark/sounds

Thanks to Craig for allowing me to share his photo with you here. To see much more of Craig's nature photography, here is the link to his website: http://www.ruffimage.com

We had a nice wet storm overnight, Friday night. There was 1.60 inches in our rain gauge. And mushrooms will be in our immediate future. More rain tonight!

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On Sunday November 22, Nancy and Rich Trissel had quite the sighting at their home off Fish Rock Road. Nancy wrote, “I had an exciting sighting just before 5 pm. From my living room, I took a photo of two young Mountain Lions staring down a young Buck. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve seen any Deer around, and I tapped the window to see if the Buck would turn, revealing the number of points in his rack. He stayed absolutely still, so I reached for binoculars. Looking where his gaze was fixed, I was rewarded with two young Mountain Lions peering over a log!

"Rich was in a nearby structure so I immediately phoned him. From his vantage, he could see THREE young lions behind the log. After the lions loped away, Rich stepped out to come home, but quickly turned back around after spotting a much larger adult uphill, closer to him. The Buck slowly walked towards where the lions disappeared. Rich estimated that the young Mountain Lions were 50 to 60 pounds in size. Big kittens!”

That's quite a sighting! The larger Mountain Lion was undoubtedly the mother. Thanks to Nancy for allowing me to share her photo with you here.

It's sunny and cooler here today. The past two days we have had booming surf with huge waves. I'll be sharing some of those photos soon.

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Julie Hidalgo took this photo at the southern end of Gualala, showing the Vue Coastal Kitchen Restaurant and the Hotel Breakers. I entitled Julie's photo "Day is Done."

Thanks to Julie for allowing me to share her photo with you here. To learn more about the Vue and the Hotel Breakers, here's a link to their website: https://www.thehotelbreakers.com/menu

An unbelievably warm day for Dec. 7th, with temps in the low 70's. It's not right, it's not normal, but it's what we have for today. I actually have my windows and doors open...amazing.

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Sara Bogard trained her camera on this beautiful Black Phoebe and found this flycatcher had nabbed an insect.

To listen to the chirping call of this bird, here is link to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Black_Phoebe/sounds

Thanks to Sara for allowing me to share her photo with you here.

We got a little rain last night - it wasn't much but it was welcome. Sunny and cool today.