California On The Wing

Look closely at the rugged, wintry landscapes of the Golden State’s Central Coast, and you might be lucky enough to spot them: red-tailed hawks, yellow-rumped warblers, blue-gray gnatcatchers. BETSY ANDREWS encounters these and many more on a bird-watching trip of a lifetime.

- Betsy Andrews

“It’s GORY,” said the docent, a retiree volunteer. We were standing on a cliffat Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, which occupies a peninsula shaped like a lion’s paw scraping the Pacific just south of Carmel, California. The winter sun glinted offwaves that splashed rocks draped in harbour seals. The docent was describing the plight of a three-foot-tall, ear-tufted bird perched near a posse of avian toughs in black, gray, and white formal wear.

“He’s a Brandt’s cormorant, and they’re western gulls,” she said. Come spring, they would all nest there, and the cormorant’s chin would turn blue to attract the ladies. “They’re neighbours, but their relationship is imperfect.” While the gulls’ call acts as a burglar alarm for cormorants by signalling predators, when the cormorant chicks hatch , the gulls are quite likely to eat them.

It’s dog-eat-dog in the bird world, I thought. But despite the neighbourhood politics, I couldn’t blame these seabirds for wanting to raise their young here. Millions of years ago, the North American and Pacific tectonic plates collided, creating the breathtaking, craggy coastline of Point Lobos we see today. And since it’s a nature reserve, it’s subject to stricter environmental protection than a state park, so the oceanfront real estate is about as pristine as it gets.