On the move

  

  California Sea Lions (Zalophus californianus) on the move off Bodega Head, 24 October 2026 

Lucky day?

  

I'm guessing you can tell that one of the birds in the photo above is not like the others.  Most of the birds are cormorants, but the rightmost bird is a Marbled Godwit.

It's not every day that you see a Marbled Godwit swimming in the ocean.  The next photo shows why the godwit was in this position:

 

 

On the right side of the image there's a Peregrine Falcon at the bottom of a stoop as it approaches the godwit.  A few minutes before this scene, we saw the falcon flush the godwit off the beach.  We watched the falcon pursuing the godwit in flight and wondered if it would be successful in catching its prey, but the godwit suddenly dropped down into the ocean.

 

I think the falcon tried at least two dozen times (!) to catch the godwit while it was sitting on the water.  Here's one example, with the godwit diving below the surface to avoid the falcon:

 

 

 

Eventually the falcon gave up.  And then the godwit was swimming in the open ocean offshore.  Below, it's on the left side of the photo:

 

 

 

I wondered what would happen and whether the godwit could fly away.  I saw it try to fly at least twice, but perhaps its feathers were too wet to take off. 

 

And then I noticed that the godwit was getting closer to shore.  It was actively swimming towards the rocks!  Note the wake behind the godwit in the next photo:

 

 

 

Soon the godwit was very close to shore:  

 

At least twice we saw it get swamped by crashing waves.  But I wondered whether a large enough wave could wash the godwit up onto the higher rocks?

Then I saw a larger wave approaching.  It crashed over the godwit and I thought perhaps the godwit wouldn't be able to make it out of that circumstance.  But then I scanned the rocks and noticed the godwit much higher on the rocks, beyond the reach of most of the waves, flapping its wings.  The wave had tossed the godwit up onto a rock ledge!

 

 

I had to go to a meeting, so I didn't see what happened immediately after this, but I went back to check the site later and the godwit was gone.  I'm guessing it just needed to dry off before it could fly away.

 

Amazing!  

October view

 

 

We've been on the East Coast helping family with fall chores -- what a beautiful fall week in New England!  Late this afternoon we went for a walk on the beach, so here's a quick view from Humarock, Massachusetts.

Coming into port

  

A couple of quick photos of Elegant Terns (Thalasseus elegans) at Porto Bodega today (28 September 2026).  There was quite a bit of feeding activity over the water, and then the terns came in to roost near the outer docks.  Excellent views of these beautiful terns!

 

 

Intertidal habitat

Happy Fall!

We're still catching up after returning from Iceland, so I haven't taken new photos in California yet.  But we've been talking about our Iceland tidepooling experiences and folks have had questions about what it was like.  So here are a few habitat photos from various intertidal sites in Iceland:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kentish?

  

 Driving towards Búðardalur

 

Many scenes in Iceland triggered memories of Rockwell Kent paintings for me.  I guess that's not really surprising, since Greenland is only ~186 miles (300 km) from Iceland.  (Occasionally polar bears make the crossing on icebergs!)

A couple of views from the West Fjords: 

 

 

 

 

It'll be fun to learn more about Icelandic landscape artists, too! 

 

Thunderous

We're back from Iceland but there were so many beautiful landscapes that I hope you don't mind if I share some more photos.

This is Dynjandi (and friends) -- a significant waterfall in the West Fjords.  The trail passes a series of smaller waterfalls leading up to the largest cascade at the top.  I was so entranced that I might have missed one, but this is the basic sequence from bottom to top.  [You can click on the photos for larger versions.]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's hard to tell the size of this waterfall in a photo, so here's another with Eric for scale:

 

 

 

Dynjandi means thunderous, and it was!