Family Activities

I feel fortunate for many things, and one of those things is the wonderful family I married into. This weekend some of that family came from far and wide—Seattle and Oslo, as well as, more locally, the Santa Cruz Mountains—for a stimulating visit. We were also joined by friends from Copenhagen on one day. An international gathering!

One thing I love about David's family is how easy they are: they rummage in the fridge when they're hungry; they sit around and read (it used to be books; nowadays it's tablets); they chat; they knit; they nap. Or maybe what I appreciate is how at home they seem to feel. It truly is one big happy family. (For a few days at least.)

Several times a bunch of us (the cast was ever changing) went out into nature. Such an activity invariably involves binoculars. Here are a few photos I shot (plus a couple I didn't):

Whale watching at Moss Landing

Something like this is what we were seeing, only a bunch
of them, on the horizon. It took me until the next day
and a whale-watch boat-captain friend's FB post to realize
that it was big blues we were seeing: thrilling!
(Not that humpbacks aren't special, but still.)

Bird watching at Elkhorn Slough

The birds in question (a lotta lotta egrets, plus maybe
one great blue heron and a few brown pelicans—in this view...
we saw a bunch of other birds outside this particular view as well)

Condor watching at Pinnacles National Park

We had the extreme pleasure and privilege of being able to watch three California condors soaring through the air and resting in what we assume is their nest (the rockface below was whitewashed with their poopage). Thanks to the handy website Condor Spotter (and concentrated peering through the binocs to discern the numbers on the birds' patagial tags), I was able to ID our friends: Kun-Wak-Shun (meaning "Thunder and Lightning") (blue-40), laid at the Oregon Zoo and hatched May 9, 2004; his mate Tiny (yellow-36), laid at San Diego Wild Animal Park and hatched March 22, 2001; and Tiny's offspring Junipero (violet-63), laid in the wilds of Big Sur and hatched March 30, 2012.

Kun-Wak-Shun: you can read more about him here.
The whole condor recovery story is a fascinating one.

Here he is showing off his wingspan, which in condors generally
can be up to 10 feet, and his approximately 20-pound weight