It has been a while since I’ve managed to blog. I’m not sure if I’ve been too busy or too lazy. Maybe a little of both. The only real news in the last few weeks was my brother Mark coming out for a visit. He was heading to a sales meeting in Southern California and came out early to spend a few days in the Bay Area. The weather wasn’t the greatest, but we did manage to visit a few places.

One trip was to Ano Nuevo State Park to see the elephant seals. Ano Nuevo is a little north of Santa Cruz. It is one of only three places on the California mainland where elephant seals breed. During the breeding season you can go on docent led walks out to the breeding area to see the big bulls, mothers and pups. There were hundreds of seals on the beach when we were there, but only a few pups so far. Unfortunately it was quite foggy, so visibility was limited. For more pictures, see my Ano Nuevo gallery.

Some of the other places we visited include: Stanford University, Santa Cruz, Golden Gate Bridge, Twin Peaks (at night) and Point Reyes.

Other than that, Mary and I spend much of our weekends sleuthing for peregrines. There are quite a few peregrines popping up in the South Bay these days. A few have been spotted in the San Jose downtown area, including Clara (pictured on right), last year’s nesting female, as well as at least two different males, known as Carlos and Salvador. Jose, last year’s male, has not been seen since he left town last summer. We often see peregrines in and around Don Edwards NWR, including a juvenile. Other notable falcons in the area are Taylor and Montie.

2007 is drawing to a close, but still things remain the same. Mary and I worked Wednesday through Friday after Christmas. I worked from home since my partner is on holiday. Friday night we went to see National Treasure: Book of Secrets. It’s a pretty fun movie, though quite similar to the first one. On Saturday we did the usual, basketball for me and hiking for Mary, followed by a walk around Don Edwards. On Sunday we went downtown looking for falcons, but no luck. On our way to Don Edwards we decided to drive by a building where people have been regularly spotting a falcon dubbed Taylor (because it is often spotted on a building at Taylor and First). We had stopped there a few times before, but this was the first time we spotted the falcon. We stayed for about an hour taking pictures using the digiscope setup. There are more pictures of Taylor in my gallery.

Last week Mary and I went to downtown San Jose to walk around Christmas in the Park (see above). They have a lot of the same decorations each year, but the trees are all different. It was pretty chilly so we both really enjoyed a Mexican hot chocolate. It’s kind of like hot horchata with chocolate in it. It’s pretty yummy. For more pictures see Christmas in the Park 2007.

The rest of last week was rather uneventful. I went up to Berkeley nearly every day to work with Nate since he’s heading out of town for the holidays. I did have lunch with Ron and Steve in Mountain View on Wednesday. After lunch Ron and I went to Tide House to check out some Yuletide brew. THey don’t seem to make it anymore. I tried their current holiday brew, but it wasn’t very good. Saturday was pretty normal. I played basketball and Mary hiked Mission.

On Sunday, Mary and I went to Pinnacles National Monument. We hiked a loop starting at the Bear Gulch Visitor Center which included Condor Gulch Trail, High Peaks Trail (Steep and Narrow section), Rim Trail, Bear Gulch Cave Trail, Moses Spring Trail and Bear Gulch Trail. The total loop is about 6.1 miles. We saw a couple condors in the distance while hiking up the Condor Gulch Trail. We stopped for lunch on the Steep and Narrow section of the High Peaks Trail. While we were there, we had a really nice fly-by from a condor. For more pictures, see the Pinnacles and Condor galleries.

On Monday, Christmas Eve, Mary and I took a drive up to Berkeley. I needed to get a PC from the office so we decided to make a day of it. We planned to eat at a New Orleans restaurant there, but it was closed. We ended up at I. B.’s Cheesesteak. After lunch we walked along a street fair on Telegraph Ave. After our walk, we hit Cafe Strada for some coffee, then headed out. Before driving home we stopped in Emeryville to look for Espie, one of the falcons born in San Jose this past spring. She had been spotted there for the last couple weeks. We managed to find her and had a nice visit. More pictures in San Jose Peregrines 2007. We had a nice Christmas Eve dinner at Mary’s parents.

For Christmas Day we went looking for falcons in San Jose. We tried a couple new locations, such as the Five Wounds Church. We didn’t find any falcons, but we did see a nice red-tailed hawk on top of the church (picture left). After striking out downtown, we headed to Don Edwards. We were checking out a burrowing owl when a large bird flew by. We’re pretty sure it was a golden eagle, but I didn’t manage to get a picture. The park gate was closed, so we walked out and around the boardwalk. We saw a white-tailed kite at the bend in the road and a black-tailed jackrabbit along the boardwalk. Now we’re ready for a nice, quiet dinner at home.

Happy Holidays!

Today was my mom’s birthday. She would have been 79. Sometimes I forget she’s gone. Once in a while I think about how I’m going to call her on Sunday and tell her all about my week’s events, but then I remember. I had given her a small stuffed panda from the World Wildlife Fund when she was in the hospital. She had named him Andy. He’s with me now, watching over me and helping me remember all the great things about my mother.

The picture on the right is from a trip to Hawaii. We were in Maui, taking the picture with my camera on a timer. I had the timer set too short and it kept taking the picture before I was in place. My mom and Mary were cracking up the whole time. I took quite a few tries to get one decent picture. At least my mom had a genuine smile for this one!

Whenever I would visit my mom, one of the things we would do is eat at a Chinese buffet. We tried a few different places around town, but the last few times were at the Jade Garden. We would usually try to make it to another buffet places called the Golden Corral, sometimes getting much of the family to join us. My mom would call the place the Golden Goose. She wasn’t always good with names, but I always knew what she was talking about. I still call the place the Golden Goose.

Today, Mary and I took Mary’s parents to dinner at a Chinese buffet, in remembrance of my mom. The place is called Pacific Buffet and had a lot of seafood. I’m not sure my mom would have liked it because it had a bit of a seafood smell, though they did have something pretty similar to the lo mein she liked so much. I had taken her to a place near my house when she came out to visit, but unfortunately that place closed down a couple years ago. I miss her.

The rest of my week was pretty typical. I went to the office in Berkeley a few times and worked from home a couple times. I started going to the gym again 2 weeks ago. I’m going to try to go 4-5 times a week. I’m starting slow and building my way up. Mary and I often go out to look for raptors on the weekend. Now we takeout the Pentax scope I got for her birthday. I managed to get a picture through the scope using Mary’s digital camera. People call this digiscoping. I got a couple decent pictures of a white-tailed kite at Don Edwards. The pictures are in my gallery. I also have one of a red-tailed hawk and some regular pictures of black-tailed rabbits.

Mary and I went out for dinner at a Japanese restaurant in San Jose. After we had ordered and while we were waiting for our food, we had the lovely experience of a magnitude 5.6 earthquake centered to the northeast of San Jose (see wave form above extracted from the USGS site). The quake started (at least what we noticed) with about 5 seconds of strong side to side motion followed by another 30 seconds or so of slow swaying. It was long enough for people to start to get concerned, but even though the shaking felt pretty strong, nothing seemed to be falling down or anything. For the next 10 minutes or so, no one was able to make a call with their cell phones. After we finished dinner, we headed home to check on things. It turns out our house is only about 6 miles from the epicenter. Fortunately, other than a small table-top picture frame that had fallen over, nothing appeared amiss. One thing is for sure, we’re not prepared for a strong temblor like the Loma Prieta earthquake that wreaked havoc on on the Bay Area in 1989.