This trip will be a unique adventure for most of us. We will start on Saturday at various spots in the general area of the Elkhorn Slough. This will cover a wide range of habitats. There is the possibility of a short docent-led tour on Saturday morning in the Elkhorn Slough national wildlife refuge. If that docent led tour is going to work out, I need to know how many people will attend. Therefore it is important that you let me know, as soon as possible, if you plan on attending. This information will also become important for our Sunday pelagic tour.
There is more than a full day’s supply of stops in the Elkhorn Slough area, alone. Additional time permitting, we will try for the Point Lobos area as well. Where the Slough meets the Monterey Bay, there are strong possibilities of sea otters, loons as well as a large supply of assorted shorebirds. Just about everything that one would expect in grasslands, tide pools and riparian habitat seem to be reported in the area of the Slough.
Sunday is scheduled for a pelagic tour in Monterey Bay. The cost of that trip is $150. The space has to be reserved. I have secured reservations for 10. I understand that I can increase or decrease these reservations as needed, but eventually will have to pay the fee. Therefore, if you want to attend the pelagic tour, please let me know right away and I will generate a list of those who are attending. The trip is expected to last about eight hours. Because this is their whale watching season and not their birdwatching season, they made it very clear that if they see a pod of killer whales they are going to go charging off watching them. However they have continued to report all kinds of unusual bird sightings on their trips, regardless of whether the target is whales or seabirds. They reported a short tailed albatross siding for yesterday. The website for this place has several addresses. One is gowhales.com. The other is Montereyseabirds.com. Please let me know, right away, if you want to attend this pelagic trip.
Places to stay in this area range from obscenely expensive in the Monterey area to downright economical, the farther away you get from Monterey. I have a favorite place to stay whenever I’m in Monterey. It is called the Spindrift Inn. It is a highly expensive hotel, especially when compared to our usual “Audubon” lodgings. I have located from an Internet search the following places which are far more reasonable: they are:
Sand Dollar Inn in Seaside $99/night
Sand Castle Inn in Seaside, $139/might
Seaside Inn in Seaside $88/night
Motel 6 Monterey $89/night
Super 8 by Wyndham Monterey $98/night
As they say, “choose wisely”.
I will designate the Saturday morning meeting place after I have an idea where others are staying and when I have confirmed where we will start out Saturday morning. Please let me know if you are even just thinking about attending this trip, so I can provide updates by email.
I have a favorite bar at the Monterey Plaza Hotel. It is outdoors and situated over the Bay. There is a great panoramic view of the Monterey Bay, Kelp Beds, Sea Otters and seabirds. We will have our traditional “Wine and Cheese” refreshment gathering somewhere on Saturday evening. I am not sure where yet.
Please let me know if you are even just thinking about going. I need to make sure that the reservations for the Sunday Pelagic trip are locked in and I need to let the Elkhorn Slough people know as well. I will do my usual scouting run the weekend before and will almost certainly have updates when I get back.
Jay Oberholtzer tvulture@earthlink.net 562 945 2838