20070208 PointReyes

Point Reyes is a peninsula on the Atlantic Coast of Marin County, California, some 70 km north of San Francisco. The San Andreas Fault cleaves Point Reyes from the adjoining mainland. On the south and the north the peninsula is separated from the continent by the Bolinas Lagoon and the Tomales Lagoon. Olema Valley connects the peninsula to the mainland.

The peninsula has the status of a “National Seashore”, a particular sort of National Park.

I wake up early at 07:00 am

Looking out of the window the first thing I see is an American Robin Turdus migratorius fighting with a big earthworm. Behind the fence I see something whitish moving. I dress myself and make a walk in the direction in which the white thing moved along the road, in the direction of the Glen Miller Environmental Education Center. It appears to be a white deer, member of a group of about 8 “damhert” alike deer (.... ).
A few moments later I see one more along the road.
I return to the Hostel and I walk along the road in the opposite direction, about 5 minutes, to the place where the Coastal Trail begins. I read an announcement on controlled firing in October 2006 and when I look up I see two young male deer (a bit like our ree Capreolus capreolus) on the trail. I don't move. They don't move either. After a while I start talking to them. They are very curious. Me too. I slowly move in their direction. They move away and keep a distance of some 20 mtrs. After some 100 mtrs moving this way one of the boys decides to get off the road. He waits about 10 mtrs. beside the road. His friend and I continue our walk. 30 mtrs. further the second boy also decides to leave the trail. So I continue the walk on my own. I observe some birds that I can't recognize and after a while I return to the Hostel for coffee.
Wv is woken up already. We have breakfast. After breakfast wv sits on the sofa, on the same place where I did my early morning observations. She sees a Turkey Vulture Cathartes aura in a tree on the other side of the road.

At about 10:00 am we drive to the end of Limantour Road. In a small water between the parking and the dunes we see:
- some Gadwall Anas strepera
- some Cinnamon Teal Anas cyanoptera (?)
- some American Coots Fulica americana

We cross the dunes and walk along the beach to the west. Along the beach we see:
- ca. 20 Willet Catoptrophorus semipalmatus in groups of two or on their own (we see clearly the “zorro”-mark in flight)
- 1 Long-billed Curlew Numenius americanus with a very long bill indeed
- some Surf Scoter Melanitta perspicillata on sea
- 1 Turkey Vulture Cathartes aura in a tree on the dunes
- 1 Raven Corvus corax

We walk back along the lagoon. Here we see a lot of wildfowl:
- American Wigeon Anas americana - hundreds
- Northern Pintail Anas acuta - at least 50
- Mallard Anas platyrhynchos - ca. 40
- Northern Shoveler Anas clypeata - ca. 10
- Gadwell Anas strepera - ca. 40
- Scoup Aythya spec. - ca. 40
- Bufflehead Bucephala albeola - ca. 50
- Snowy Egret Egretta thula - ca. 5
- Willet Catoptrophorus semipalmatus - ca. 40
- Black Turnstone Arenaria melanocephala - one group of ca. 20
- Marbled Godwit Limosa fedoa - ca. 5
- “bonte strandloper” - few hundreds
- “kanoet” - some 50
- “bontbekplevier” - ca. 5
- Northern Harrier Circus cyaneus - 1 male

In the meantime it has started raining. We're not dressed for it. We get very, very wet, wet, wet.

About noon we have coffee in Olema. After coffee we go straight to the Visitor Center. We see a movie. We get a bit dry. We buy some interesting books:
- Evens, Jules G. - The natural history of the Point Reyes Peninsula (Point Reyes, California 1993)
- Lanner, Ronald M. - Conifers of California (Los Olivos, California 2002)

We drive to Inverness. Along the border of Tomales Bay we see:
- Canada Goose Branta canadensis - ca. 5
- Osprey Pandion haliaetus - 2
- Great Egret Ardea alba - 1
- some common waterfowl

We drive along Sir Francis Drake Hwy to Schooner Bay.
From the Hwy you have a good view over the shallow waters, but especially the little road to the Oyster Farm gives lovely sightings of the waterfowl in the waters:
- Scoup Aythya spec.
- Bufflehead Bucephala albeola
- Willet Catoptrophorus semipalmatus
- Marbled Godwit Limosa fedoa
- wintertaling
-Northern Pintail Anas acuta
-Mallard Anas plathyrhynchos
-Gadwall Anas strepera
-American Wigeon Anas americana

During the day we saw on different places:
- White-crowned Sparrow Zonotrichia leucophrys
- House Sparrow Passer domesticus

Returning to our homebase we find out that some new visitors have arrived. A group of schoolchildren with teachers. They sleep in a separate house. And in the male dorm 2 new visitors have taken their place. One of them is snoring so loud that I wake up halfway the night, and I don't fall asleep again. I sneak off to the ladies dorm. Take care that the alarm wakes me before Brad is around!

20070207 From the Redwoods, and the Kent Tree, to Point Reyes

We have learnt that the Redwoods are the tallest trees in the world. They can have a height of ca. 100 mtrs. We are in one of the best places to see Redwoods. And what do we read? That the tallest tree over here is (or at least was, until 1981) a Douglas Fir. We do not especially hate Douglas Firs, of course. But do we love them?

Well, Mr. William Kent, who donated much of the land on which Muir Woods was based, loved one three in the reserve most of all: it was later called the “Kent Tree”, and this tree was a Douglas Fir.

It used to be the tallest tree in Muir Woods until El Niño took its top in the winter of 1981/82. In January 2003 a fissure appeared at the foot of the Kent Tree. That crack grew until, on the evening of March 18, 2003 at 08:28 pm the tree crashed to the ground. It took some other trees with it, in its fall. And it will be left there, how it tumbled. The pathway along it had to be relocated.
One can still imagine how large the tree has been, when standing next to the stem. see picture wv 20070209 065.jpg (apologizes for the bad light conditions in the rain).

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Heading for Point Reyes we make a mistake. We continue on the road to Muir Beach and then back on the SH1 to the north. But after climbing and winding through dense fog on a road that gets quieter and quieter as we continue, a police-officer blocks our way. He tells us the road is closed further up. So we have to get back to Muir Woods and take the “panoramic road”. Darkness is rapidly falling. Fog is dense in some places and there's a lot of traffic on the road. This is not funny. But finally we reach Stinson Beach. From there on our map shows a straight road northwards (SH1). But the road keeps winding until the point where we have to get off. The last 6 miles to the Point Reyes Hostel are of good quality and without any other traffic. We arrive in total darkness at about 07:00 pm. Brad welcomes us.

There's only one other visitor. So I sleep with one fellow in the 10 person men's bunkroom and wv sleeps in the female bunkroom all alone.

20070207 Muir Woods

“Muir Woods National Monument” is one of the most well known remnants of the ancient coast redwood forests of northern California. In the 19th century most of the forests of the (Coastal) Redwoods Sequoia sempervirens were cut. But a forest along Redwood Creek was spared, mainly because it was so difficult to reach. In 1905 William Kent bought land in the valley, in order to protect it. In 1908 Kent and his wife Elizabeth Thacher donated 295 acres to the Federal Government. In 1908 President Roosevelt proclaimed it a national monument. Mr. Kent suggested that it should be named after the conservationist John Muir. From then on the fame of “Muir Woods National Monument” started growing. Nowadays this park, situated so closely to San Francisco, is visited each year by thousands of people. For many of them the Redwoods of Muir Woods are the Redwoods: perhaps the only ones they will ever see.

more detailed description yet to make.

Literature:

- an. - Muir Woods. Free leaflet distributed by the National Park Service, US Department of the Interior, reprint 2004.

- an. - Muir Woods - National Monument. Leaflet with park map etc. distributed by Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, 2004.

- John Hart - Muir Woods - Redwood Refuge. Brochure published by the Golden Gate National Park Association, 1991.

check wiki en/nl Muir Woods; check wiki John Muir; check Narena John Muir.

ref. Ariel Rubissow - John Muir - national historic site. Brochure published by Southwest Parks and Monuments Association, Tucson, Arizona, 1990.

- - - - -

The Park has an entry fee of US$ 3 pp

Restaurant and shop, where we buy some books and other gadgets. See Muir Woods - lit.

The shop also provides

- little transparant containers with seedlings of Sequoia sempervirens and Sequoiadendron giganteum.
- “cans” with seeds etc. of ibid.
- small pieces of “burls”of Sequoia sempervirens. If placed in water saplings grow out of it. They die after a couple of months.
(forgot to make pictures of these gadgets! See small leaflet of the firm that distributes these things: .....)

20070207 Redwoods

One of the main reasons we wanted to make a stopover in San Francisco was that we liked to see the Redwood Sequioa sempervirens in its natural surroundings. We found them. At Muir Woods National Monument. We also found a beautiful image of the Redwood at the entrance of Muir Woods.

Still a bit of cleaning and it can be used as a real wv/db-production, made after an image at a display at Muir Woods National Monument. I think that will be public enough to publish it as a copyright-free image at wiki.

Here comes the wiki.....

(sorry - while I'm writing this, 20070301; 22:54, in a cabin at Gisborne campsite, I realise that I left my background-info in Tiniroto).

On our way back from Point Reyes to San Francisco (20070209) we saw (a lot of) other specimen of the Redwood, just along the road. But by that time we were so blasé that we didn't even stop (or, to be more correct, we couldn't find a place to park).

20070207 Golden Gate Bridge & Sausalito

We pass Golden Gate Bridge - pictures db

On the North, at Fort Baker, is a little Harbour with nice view on the bridge. see pictures wv: 20070209 026.jpg.

20070207ScoupsWv20070209036.jpg

Here we observe:
- 1 “walrus”-like mammal - most probably a sea elephant.
- 1 Red-throated Loon Gavia stellata
- a group of 70 - 90 Scoup Aythya spec. - pictures wv 20070209 036.jpg - check Greater or Lesser

- 1 Horned Grebe Podiceps auritus
- 3 Bufflehead Bucephala albeola, like our Goldeneye, but with darker head and white stripe over it.
- 15 American Crow Corvus brachyrhynchos

A little bit more North in the Bay we see:
- Scoup Aythya spec. - a group of ± 10.
- Surf Scoter Melanitta perspicillata - ± 50 (male with orange-yellow bill and white spot at the front of the head and at the back of the neck; female brown).
- Cormorant Phalacrocorax spec. - hundreds of coming from the centre of the Bay and flying in the direction of the Ocean in large lines.
- Western Grebe Aechmophorus occidentalis - 1.

We visit the small town of Sausalito on the border of the Bay.
- Visitor Information Centre with nice exhibition on the history of the town.
- Supermarket Mollie Stone's
- “Bay Model”: a scale model of San Francisco Bay more or less like our Delft (later NOP) based “Waterloopkundig Lab” in a big building on the waterside that was formerly used to repair navy ships or someting like that.

20070207 Montara Lighthouse

We have breakfast in the kitchen of Montara Lighthouse Hostel.
From the window we have a beautiful view at the ocean. Picture wv: 20070209 010.jpg

We see:
- lots of Cormorants Phalacrocorax spec., feeding and passing by.
- 1 Brown Pelican Pelecanus occidentalis flying south.
- 1 Black Oystercatcher flying south.
- 5 - 10 Common Murres Uria aalge (I think in England they are called Guillemot) feeding.

Something more about:
Project called “Returning Home: bringing the Common Murre back to Devil's Slide Rock”.

During the breeding season there is a live video connection in the Hostel, that shows breeding Common Murres Uria aalge and Brandt's Cormorants Phalacrocorax penicillatus at Devil's Slide Rock, in the Gulf of the Farallones, 3 miles north of Montana Lighthouse. Outside the season the video shows highlights of the 2006 breeding season.

Historically, the Common Murres nested on Devil's Rock. In the early 1980's, about 1500 pairs nested on the rock. Shortly after the colony was decimated when birds were killed in fishing gill-nets and oil spills. The colony was eliminated in 1986 after an oil spill along the coast. The barg “Apex Houston” spilled 26.000 gallons of crude oil while in transit from San Francisco Bay to Long Beach, California, hillong an estimated 9.900 seabirds, 6.300 of which were Common Murres.
The Common Murre Restoration Project is conducted by several organizations, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Humboldt State University and the national Audubon Society.
The shipping company agreed to pay for projects to restore the Common Murre population.
Since 1996, biologists have been using a technique known as social attraction to restore the murre colony on Devil's Slide Rock. Murre decoys and amplified calls from CD players have been used to lure the highly colonial birds back to the rock.
The first chick was born in 1996. Since then, the number of nesting pairs and chicks has increased steadily, to 190 breeding pairs and 133 chicks fledged in 2004.
The scientists, that monitor the development of the colony, have a home base in the Hostel.

There is a DVD available, called “Returning Home” (2006) - see photocopy.

---

We say goodbye to Lydia and Nancy. We offer them our kitchen towels.

When we leave the trip counter is at 30 miles.
First we get a full tank of petrol at Pacifica.

In the surroundings of Pacifica we see a male Northern Harrier Circus cyaneus. The same as our “blauwe kiek”?

At Golden Gate Park we see 2 raptors together in a tree, with striped breast, like juv. Sparrowhawks. Cooper's Hawks? ref. 2007-02-10 (Strybing Arboretum).

On the road we see a number of “Hawks”.

20060206 Pillar Point Harbour

We do have time to make a short trip along the coast to the south in the direction of Half Moon Bay: Princeton at Pillar Point Harbour. It's getting dark but we still see:

• lots of gulls

• a small group of Goldeneyes (8 females, 2 males) ? check! Buffleheads I think on 2nd thought (although we've seen some Goldeneyes too, later)!

• some egrets

We do some shopping at Moss Beach.

Before we get to bed we enjoy (a part of) the “Travelling Birds”-dvd, together with the other guests. We are served with fresh popcorn.

On some days there happen a great lot of things!

20070206 Montara Lighthouse

Wv drives us via Interstate 280 and SH1 to Pacifica.

There we have coffee and sandwiches at a nice place at the seaside called ....

We arrive at Montara Lighthouse Hostel at about 16:00. Lydia welcomes us. We get a co-ed dorm (for 4 persons; we're the only ones in it tonight). There are a some other guests in the hostel. About 8.

The hostel is beautifully situated on a rock overlooking the ocean, in a couple of buildings, adjacent to a picturesque lighthouse. (see picture wv: 20070209 020.jpg)

During the breeding season the Hostel has a live video connection with the breeding colony of Common Murre Uria aalge (our Guillemot) at Devil's Slide Rock. Now there is a presentation of a dvd with highlights of the 2006 breeding season. More information 20070207.

20070206 Our Toyota Camry

Finally we are transferred to:

Airport Rent a Car
767 Huntington Ave.
San Bruno, CA 94066
(800) 411 - 5050

A Mexican guy who wants to rent us a Toyota Camry- Automatic.
see picture wv taken at 20070211 in Redwood surroundings - 20070216 033.jpg

It costs us $ 400 for 5 days, except petrol.

20070206 San Francisco Airport

We take the Air Train (see leaflet and pictures wv - made at 20070206: 20070209 002.jpg and at feb 11: 20070216 050.jpg, 20070216 051.jpg and 20070216 059.jpg - pity that the window was so dirty!) to “Rental Car Center”.

From there we are transferred to Fox Rental Car Office. They don't want to rent us our reserved car, because the driver license is that of wv and the credit card is of db! We get another transfer.

20070206 AMS -> SFO

depart 08:00 Afoort Kwekersweg by bus
depart 08:15 Amersfoort Station with a quarter of an hour delay to Amsterdam-Schiphol

Flight KL 605 AMS -> SFO
depart 11:10 from Amsterdam
travel time:
arrival 13:30 local time SFO
SFO is 9 hrs. later than AMS!
----------
remark:
at KLM incheck we discover that we both are allowed to take 2 pieces of luggages of max. 23 kg. each. So 46 kg. per person! And apart from that we may take our cabine baggage!
but: domestic flights in NZ have a maximum of 20 kg. pp!
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There's a lot of clouds above Schiphol. We can't even see the Dutch coastline.
On our way we only see the mountains and gletschers of Iceland and of Greenland. Later we see parts of Canada. All covered with snow. We get good sights of the Rocky Mountains. When we get close to San Francisco the weather gets better. We get a really clear look at Point Reyes!

During the flight we read:
- Mayes, Kathleen - Jet lag de baas (Houten, 1992) (db - quite instructive on how to overcome a jet lag)
- Louis Paul Boon - Mijn kleine oorlog (Amsterdam, 1947 / 4de dr. 1968) (db - a really splendid little book in which L.P. Boon gives his very personal impressions on life of common people in and shortly after WW2)
- Peter Matthiessen - De sneeuwluipaard (wv - she seems to be really fond of that book!)

We watch 2 movies:
- The guardian (with Kevin Costner and Father ... of Carnivale!) - in honour of the brave men and women of the US Coast Guard. Typical American sentimentality, but it did get us.
- Scoop (from and with Woody Allen) - about a girl that “infiltrates” in English aristocratic family. With the typical Allen-style jokes. “I used to be a Hebrew, but now I'm a Narcissist.”

last preparations

Planning NZ-trip wv/db feb – april 2007

db, 2007-01-14

2007-02-06 Tue depart Amsterdam Schiphol (AMS) 11:10am

flight nr. KL605 arrive San Francisco (SFO) 01:30pm

rent a car via Fox: Toyota Prius http://www.foxrentacar.com/ ca. $284

2007-02-06 Tue stay at Hostelling International (HI) Point Montara

(close to airport) http://www.norcalhostels.org/montara/index.html

1 night

2007-02-07 Wed transfer to HI Point Reyes (a little bit north of SFO)

http://www.norcalhostels.org/reyes/index.html (much info and links)

2 nights

2007-02-09 Fri transfer to ...........

2007-02-10 Sat back to Montara

whale watching from Half Moon Bay

http://www.oceanic-society.org/pages/wwb.html

2007-02-11 Sun depart SFO 07:00pm

flight nr. NZ7

2007-02-13 Tue arrival AKL (Auckland) 05:15am

transfer AKL – Gisborne: AKL depart 07:15am

flight nr.

Gisborne arrival 08:15am

Air New Zealand (http://www.eu.airnewzealand.com/)

2007-02-13 AKL – Gisborne

Booked via Flight Centre NZ (http://www.flightcentre.co.nz)

NZ$ 416 (uit het hoofd)

passenger names: Dirk Bos & Willemijntje Verburg