Recap of this Week

This past week has been quite busy. With Sam and Amanda off to different parts of the country and being challenged by uncharacteristic rainy weather, Cara and I had a lot of work to do. Last Friday all the interns went on a tour of the Point Reyes National Seashore. We saw elephant seals, a gray whale, California seals, a Steller's seal, and a colony of thousands of Murres! 

On Monday I drove down to Stanford to visit my friend Matt, and dropped Xeronimo off at home. Then tuesday Xeronimo and I spent the day in San Francisco. Pretty cool stuff! 

One of the days last week I essentially got attacked by a river otter. We were banding near Pine Gulch Creek and we heard this loud call. What at first we thought to be a bird was actually a pair of river otters screaming at us. I got into the water to try and take a picture of them. One started coming my way and then at about a couple feet away it started to swim even faster at me and started growling and hissing. I ran away while the otter continued to hiss!

Tomorrow I leave on an AWESOME trip to the Farallon Islands! We have 4 or 5 interns living on the island who conduct research and they need food delivered to them every 2 weeks. It is a very strict process and they only allow certain people to get to the island. I won the chance to shop for the food for them and to deliver it all to the island! I will be taking a power boat out there and hopefully I will get the chance to explore the island a little and see some awesome new species! Let's hope I don't get seasick!

I'm seriously in love with this place!

Elephant Seals lounging on the beach. 

A closer look at the Elephant Seals

Furthest point west of the continental U.S.!

Warbling Vireo. So pretty!

Juvenile American Robin. Obviously, not very happy to be away from its parents. 

A very crappy picture of the little guy that tried to attack me!