The weather has turned warm and calm, a good prescription for seeing butterflies. In this case, Craig Tooley photographed the king of butterflies, a Monarch.
I reported Craig's sighting to Journey North, a citizen science website where they track the migrations of various animals, including Monarchs. You can participate at this link: https://journeynorth.org/monarchs
To see much more of Craig's nature photography, here is the link to his website: www.ruffimage.com
Paul and Jackie Brewer have a front row seat to watch for whales from their Gualala home. Last week a pod of Humpback Whales was seen feeding. Here you can see the spouts of three Humpbacks.
And here is the tail of a Humpback Whale.
In this next photo you can see another tail photo but there's a line of what Paul thought might be fish. Upon closer examination, whale expert Scott Mercer determined they were "many, many California Sea Lions." There must have been a LOT of forage fish in the ocean.
More whales were seen yesterday, including two spouts seen by me as Rick and I drove home from Santa Rosa. The spouts were seen south of Fort Ross. It never gets old see a whale...never.
Thanks to Paul for allowing me to share his photos with you here. To see much more of Paul's nature photography, here is the link to his website: http://www.capturingnatureswonders.com/
Common Ravens can be seen flying overhead every day. Gary Curtis recently photographed two of them resting on a bluff at The Sea Ranch.
They are very intelligent birds, and have been known to use tools. They can vocalize and one was even trained to say "Nevermore!"
Thanks to Gary for allowing me to share his photo with you here.
The Pacific Ocean has become more active, presumably from storms to our north. It's fun to hear the ocean speaking louder with its crashing waves. Ron LeValley recently photographed a beautiful wave.
The rain we had several weeks ago has coaxed the first Boletus edulis, King Boletes, to make a welcome appearance. These first ones are being found closer to the bluffs, where fog has contributed to their appearance. Lisa Cracknell found a nice group of them!
Lisa is holding David Arora's wonderful pocketbook entitled "All That the Rain Promises and More." My copy is well-used - it's the go-to book when out in the forest. David's more comprehensive book is titled "Mushrooms Demystified." I highly recommend them. If you need a copy or either one, please consider purchasing them at the Four-eyed Frog Bookstore in Gualala. https://www.foureyedfrog.com/
Thanks to Ron and to Lisa for allowing me to share their photos with you here. To see much more of Ron's nature photography, here is the link to his website: http://levalleyphoto.com/home/
Skies were clear on October 7th, prompting some of our talented photographers to try to capture the night sky, the Milky Way being one of their main goals. Paula Power found an anomaly in the sky Sunday night. She wrote, “Our photo group [the North Coast Photographers Group] got together to do some night sky images. While waiting in the parking lot at Shell Beach, we saw this spacecraft appear in the sky about 7:30 pm.
We couldn’t figure out what it was! It had a plasma-like cloud around it. It hovered and slowly moved northwest, and then suddenly kind of disappeared. We joked about UFOs, and then I read about the SpaceX launch!”
Pretty wonderful sighting! Thanks to Paula for allowing me to share it with you. To learn more about the North Coast Photographers Group, here is the link: http://gualalaarts.org/interest-groups/north-coast-photographers-group/All photographers are welcome!