This year's 2016 Monterey Bay Bird Festival was held September 22-25 and there were many pelagic trips into Monterey Bay. I joined Debi Shearwater on her Shearwater Journeys trip on Sunday. The weather started to warm up with temperatures reaching into the 90s along the coast. This happens during the fall with the fog and heat taking turns controlling the weather. Just after sunrise our boat left the harbor and we cruised through both Monterey and Santa Cruz counties.
Pyramid Lake is the geographic sink of the Truckee River Basin and is located 40 mi (64 km) northeast of Reno (NV). Located in the Great Basin, Pyramid Lake is the remnant of Pleistocene Lake Lahontan that covered modern northwestern Nevada, northeastern California, and southern Oregon.
The Farallon Islands, (from the Spanish farallón meaning "pillar" or "sea cliff"), are a group of islands off the coast of California approximately 30 miles (48 km) west of the Golden Gate Bridge and 20 miles (32 km) south of Point Reyes National Seashore. This area is frequented by sharks and whales and has breeding colonies of California, Stellar's and Fur seals. In addition, there are 12 species of seabirds that breed on the islands.
Tahoe Meadows is located along Mt. Rose Highway about 1.3 km (.8 mi) from the 2,716 m (8,911 ft) Mt. Rose summit on the way from Reno to Incline Village at Lake Tahoe. The Meadow is about 20 minutes from my home and has become one of my favorite birding hotspot and an added bonus it is about 10 deg-F cooler.
At the beginning of July 2016, J, the kids, and I headed to Northeast Nevada to the Ruby Lake NWR and the Ruby Mountains area. We decided on this area after reading about sightings of Himalayan Snowcock (Tetraogallus himalayensis) around the Lamoille and Island Lakes. This introduced species in now an established population and the only one in the Americas.
