Tag Archives: Anchor Bay

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Mendocino Coast Audubon Society held their annual bird count on Saturday. A Sandhill Crane was spotted near Lighthouse Road, which is north of the tiny city of Point Arena. It was a great bird to add to their list as it is an extremely rare sighting here.

Two years ago a pair of these beautiful cranes appeared outside my house in Anchor Bay and they danced in the air as if just for me. No one else saw them that day and, as I'm not the most experienced birder, I don't think I would have been believed if I hadn't gotten these photos.

In the days to come birders confirmed my sighting as this pair stayed near the Garcia River flats for some weeks. You can see in my photos that the cranes were calling, though I don't remember hearing them. I think I was too excited with my sighting of a bird I had never seen before.

To hear their call, here's the link to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Sandhill_Crane/sounds

And so we start the first day of the new year, 2013. It will be fun and exciting to see what unfolds here on the beautiful Mendonoma Coast.

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Rick and I found a nice string of Matsutakes yesterday. We have sandy soil and that's what this prized edible mushroom wants to grow in. Below are three of them peaking out from pine needles and next to Salal, a plant they are associated with. Tan-Oak, Douglas-Fir and wild Rhododendrons are also close by.

You must make sure of your identification of this aromatic mushroom. It's important to get the complete stem to make sure there is no volva, a cup-like structure, at the bottom. Just looking at these photos brings the unique fragrance of these mushrooms to me.

 The Matsutakes that grow in the Pacific Northwest are also called White Matsutakes. They do not turn brown like Matsutakes do in other parts of the world. Below is a photo of the first Bellybutton Hedgehog we've seen this season. It's just a baby but it will grow in the days to come.

And we had wild weather today. Below is a photo of the storms clouds we saw from our deck in Anchor Bay this morning.  I call these days "wait five minutes days" because it can be raining one moment and then brilliant sunshine the next.

My best to you today!

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The sunset Friday night was especially lovely. I took this photo from our front deck in Anchor Bay.

 And here is the last full moon that shone over the Mendonoma Coast on Nov. 26th.

Thanks to Rob for allowing me to share his full moon photo with you here.

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Male California Sea Lions are migrating now. In recent months the males have been hanging around the females on Fish Rocks, which is just off Anchor Bay, and a few other locations. Now the males are leaving, some going only as far as The Sea Ranch. Craig Tooley photographed a magnificent male with a Common Raven looking over its shoulder.

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

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The weather warnings sound ominous, with many inches of rain forecast to fall in the days to come. Eight to fifteen inches of rain? It's hard to wrap one's head around it. Up until today we have had wonderful weather with many beautiful sunsets. Here's a recent one I took from our deck in Anchor Bay.

Last Friday the horizon was clear and there was a beautiful green flash at sunset. To see one of the photos of a green flash on this site, here's the link: http://www.mendonomasightings.com/2012/02/07/the-green-flash-was-photographed-by-richard-kuehn/

And to see a green flash that turned into blue and then violet, here's a very rare photo taken by Ron LeValley: http://www.mendonomasightings.com/2012/08/10/a-green-flash-that-turned-into-something-more-as-photographed-by-coastal-photographer-ron-levalley/