Wandering with an eye on nature in Lake County and on Point Reyes in West Marin County this weekend, I saw various things, some sobering, some sublime. I have shuffled snapshots here of the two locales.
A free ranging herd of Tule Elk grazed among cattle and black tail deer on the ridges above Drakes Estero on Point Reyes. We saw forty of them this afternoon.
A gray fox, killed by a vehicle on a country road in a Southern part of Lake County, attracted a kindly woman. She dragged the corpse off the road. Later a sky burial took place, in which six vultures, six ravens, and a red-tailed hawk appeared out of the sheer blue and took up the remains.
A tule fog burned off above pear orchards near Hopland.
On the Westernmost extremity of Point Reyes, hundreds of Columbian black-tail deer grazed the pastoral lands.
A Western newt crossed a road after Lake County's first rains of the season.
In the center of the picture, two of the vultures, who attended the fox.
The Westernmost point in our latitude of California, a gathering place for ravens (black dots in the picture).
The groaning and bubbling sounds of elephant seals were heard nearby. A grey whale spouted below the cliffs on its way to Baja.
