Point Reyes National Seashore

Point Reyes National Seashore is a gem. About an hour drive from Santa Rosa at the end of a drive through some very beautiful landscapes lies a treasure chest of wild life photography opportunities. On Thanksgiving, Jan and I packed cranberry and turkey sandwiches and headed there for a walk and a picnic. I, of course, took my camera gear.

A good friend and I once hired a photography guide to help us find bobcats at Point Reyes. While we did find some badgers, we did not see one bobcat. On subsequent excursions I had seen them but always at a distance and they being very wary of humans would disappear quickly. On this lovely Thanksgiving Day, here was a young bobcat hunting along the road. He showed no concern about our presence and kept right on hunting.

On our walk I couldn't pass up this white crowned sparrow feasting.

And a bit later this northern harrier leaving its perch. As a side note, there is a phenomenon that happens frequently at Point Reyes, about mid morning, when the camera will not focus a super sharp image. It has to do with atmospherics and I have encountered it a few times there. This image has a soft focus partly due to the atmospherics and partly due to shooting too slow of a shutter speed. This shot was taken at 1/800 sec and should have been twice that speed.

As we were headed down to North Beach to have lunch and watch the waves, we encountered these two coyotes. The one on the right was hunting by itself and then the other came running up. They were very chummy and cavorted on the hillside for quite a while. A real treat to see as usually they are very serious, down to business hunters. All in all it was a wonderful day at Point Reyes and a great way to spend a holiday.

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