Tag Archives: Point Arena Lighthouse Peninsula

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Two weeks ago was a great time for seeing Humpback Whales off the Mendonoma Coast.

Scott and Tree Mercer didn't have any sightings of mother/calf gray whales that week, but they were compensated with humpback sightings. Tree wrote, “Despite some challenging wind and fog conditions, humpback whales continue to be seen along our coast. This week, Scott and I documented 40 sightings  of humpbacks seen at the Point Arena Lighthouse peninsula, Saunders Reef, and at Gerstle Cove. Seven additional humpbacks were seen by Shari Goforth at Ollie’s Straight, Gualala Point Island and off the beach at Gualala Point Regional Park. Many of these humpbacks displayed full and half breaching, tail lobbing, and taking long dives most likely to feed on anchovies.

We have also observed two foraging gray whales swimming both north and south along the peninsula at the Lighthouse. We continue to search for gray whale mothers with their calves which typically can be seen throughout the month of May and even into early June.”

Sara Bogard got a nice photo of a humpback whale tail lobbing while doing her weekly survey of harbor seals off the Point Arena Lighthouse peninsula and surrounding areas.

She spotted 128 harbor seals of which 38 were pups.

Thanks to Sara for allowing me to share her photo with you here and thanks to the Mercers for their report.

Sunny and warm today, but there's a storm coming in tonight - hard to believe!

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Sara Bogard was out at the Point Arena Lighthouse Peninsula when she saw this Ferruginous Hawk looking at her. She quickly got this photo.

A few of these hawks will overwinter here on the Mendonoma Coast and it's always a treat to see them. They will be leaving soon as their breeding season will be commencing soon. Here's a map by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology that shows where they will be headed.

Thanks to Sara for allowing me to share her photo with you here. And thanks to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology for being so awesome. Their website is http://allaboutbirds.org They also created the Merlin Bird ID that lets you use a smartphone to listen to a bird's call. It then will ID it for you. I've been waiting for this app all my life! You can learn about it here: https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/ It's a free app, but you just might be inclined to hit the donate button on their website as a thank you.

oh boy, we had a lot of rain the past five days, five inches of the wet stuff. I'm at 48.10 inches season to date, a nice wet winter. Today is sunny and breezy.

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Sara Bogard saw this rare visitor to our coast off the Point Arena Lighthouse Peninsula. It's a Harlequin Duck.

When talking to each other, Harlequin Ducks make un-duck-like squeaks, which gives them another common name, Sea Mouse.

A week or so earlier, in the same area, Sara had watched while two Common Ravens attempted to chase off a Red-tailed Hawk.

Can't we all just get along?

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

Saturday's storm was suppose to be the smaller of the storms but it's really pouring here. 1.60 inches so far. Yikes!

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Shari Goforth-Eby was at the Point Arena Lighthouse Peninsula when she spotted some rippling on the ocean. It was the first clue Gray Whales were approaching. As she watched, the calf breached and then breached ten more times. Yes! Ten. More. Times!

I wish I had seen that. But fortunately for us, Shari got this great photo of one of the breaches. Thanks to Shari for allowing me to share her photo with you here.

This is the time to see Gray Whales mothers and calves, but we've had a lot of fog. Today was no different but the fog did recede in the afternoon.

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Sara Bogard was near the Point Arena Lighthouse Peninsula when she saw this Bald Eagle come in for a landing. Some kind of duck is in the water behind the big eagle.

Eric Zetterholm recently photographed a Bald Eagle at the Gualala River.

It's so wonderful that Bald Eagles have returned to the Mendonoma Coast!

Thanks to Sara and Eric for allowing me to share their photos with you here.

Sunny and cool today, with more rain coming in overnight.