Elephant Seal Overlook - Part 1

Our visit to the Point Reyes National Seashore continues with a scenic trail to the Elephant Seal Overlook...

On your way to the overlook, look to your right to find Brown Pelicans and Red-throated Loons swimming in Drakes Bay...

 The pelicans' wings barely skim the water as they fly off across the bay...

 There are still wildflowers blooming along the path, even in late summer...

What in the world is that loud roaring sound in the distance? It's a group of elephant seals up ahead...

Read Part 2 tomorrow...

Drakes Beach - Part Two

I have lots more photos of Drakes Beach from our trip to Point Reyes National Seashore in California, so let's get right to it...

Here's another shot of one of the loons I talked about yesterday...

 There's something so magical about having an entire beach to yourself...

Every time we go to the coast, I come back convinced that I could quit my day job to identify gulls full time. There are so many different types that I have the hardest time matching up a name to my photos. My field guide has several pages dedicated to how different the juveniles look from 1st winter to 2nd summer and so on and so forth!

 If I were a seagull, I'd definitely hang out at the beach all day, every day...

Come back tomorrow for some more of Drakes Beach!

Drakes Beach - Part One

Sometimes you just need to see the ocean. So, we hopped in the car and drove the 200 miles west until we hit the Point Reyes National Seashore. We're still enduring triple digits here in the valley and spending some time in 60 degree temps on the coast sounded absolutely divine.

We've been wanting to explore this area for a while now--and wow, was it beautiful!

Our first stop was Drakes Beach...

This is the first beach I've seen with sandstone cliffs...

The landscape was absolutely stunning, even in the early morning light...

It was 8:00 in the morning and we had the entire beach to ourselves...

In the distance, we could see huge flocks of birds (we're talking thousands) flying across the water...

At first we thought they were cormorants because of how low they sit in the water, but then we thought they might be guillemots...

And then when we got home and put the photos in our ID app, it told us they are loons!

You might remember that we had our very first loon sighting in the mountains at Lassen VNP last year. (Read that post here.) So, you can imagine how baffling it was to have our second sighting hundreds of miles away and on the beach no less.

More pics of Drakes Beach on tomorrow's post...