What to Find at Point Reyes, CA

May 15

Located on the great Pacific flyway, Point Reyes National Seashore astonishingly holds the most diverse bird species counts of any other national park in the U.S.  Over 490 species of birds can be spotted here throughout the seasons, which translates to 54 % of all North American birds, a number that is larger than the totals of 40 other states!  Some birds are residents, some purposefully migrate

Great Horned Owl, Point Reyes

here or stop over but, interestingly, some land at the rugged shores of Point Reyes as accidental tourists, blown so robustly by the winds and pushed by ocean currents that the inborn navigational instincts of several birds are thrown off and birds that otherwise might choose another climate find themselves at Drakes Estero or at Abbots Lagoon where resident species such as Double-Crested

Abbots Lagoon

Cormorants, Snowy Plovers, Marsh Wrens, Bluebirds, Towhees, California Quail, Red-tailed Hawks and the Majestic Great Blue Heron

Great Blue Heron Abbots Lagoon

mingle with summer birds like Brown Pelicans, Caspian Terns and enormous Osprey.  Winter birds such as Merlins, Gulls, Sanderlings and even the Falcon

Peregrine Falcon

call Point Reyes home.  The sheer magnitude of the abundance of bird species here is dependent on the fact that where freshwater meets ocean water, in estuaries, salt marshes and mud flats, all forms of plant life thrive.  Marsh vegetation such as cord grass, pickleweed and salt grass can produce decomposed bacteria for fish which, in turn, serve as the food source for so many waterfowl.  The violent tides that push and pull from the vast Pacific inward toward the estuaries serve as a sort comb and filter to serve nutrients inward toward the animal life, then eventually sweep it back out in the churning current, creating a sort ready made smorgasbord of food.

What to Find at Point Reyes

May 11


Back in 1579, as Sir Francis Drake would have just finished sailing the Golden Hind along the western shore of the continent all the way up to Alaska then back south due to impassable ice, he would have settled into a bay at Point Reyes utterly teeming with wildlife.  There had been very good reason that the ancient Miwok people of

the Bay area had settled here and thrived – we might even say, happily as a civilization (compared to the Spanish and English conquerors who brought military domination, forced religion, and exploitation of resources) – because of the abundance.  Grizzly bears were then bountiful in this region, attracted to the open range unlike their counterpart the black bear, which likes the thicker forest.  Deer of

all sorts, bobcats and mountain lions, not to mention surfacing whales, clumps of beached seals,

and even the occasional southern roaming great white shark.  And although they may not have witnessed this, about 20 miles offshore from the Point Reyes Lighthouse lies an underwater island called Cordell Bank, which sits on the tip of a long granite peninsula.  The island, including some 526 square miles around it, has been since deemed a sea life sanctuary.  Extreme shipping frequency in the ocean and extreme habitat loss on land has transformed what was once one of the more prolifically abundant landscapes on earth to something that reveals only small parts of its former glory.

Nature Journal

May 8


The Black River is nearly currentless on a calm day – waves calm, windless, the sun then settles down on the legs as you float along on kayak.  The backwaters of the upper Mississippi River teeming Sandhill cranes, the red wings, and scattered mallards.  Because the water is high you can nose into the brush of otherwise elusive marshlands through broken timber and upturned stumps.  Every square foot, as you slowly glide across the surface, slow and easy strokes, a carp rolls below and leaves streaking ripples through the lily pads.  Turtle heads poke up to peak then dart down into the shallow duckweed just as quickly.  Yet of all of this, the truest grand finale is the giant raptors eagles dangling from the crusted old growth overlooking the backwaters.  The young, unlike the more visually obvious bold white head of the mature eagles, blend into the dreary May timber.  As we approached the underbrush of a water thicket, suddenly a shadow leaped and sprung from a dead branch above our heads.  The wing spread of even the two year old is as mammoth as anything we see in these parts of the upper Mississippi, as the flap is slow and body bulky across the open sky above.  We follow through a barely cut trail in the backwater reeds.  It lands.  We follow. We watch its bulk on the branch as it leaps again and circles back around us, only feet above, the king of the river sky.

What to Find at Point Reyes, CA

May 8


How the bay below the Point Reyes sea cliffs came to be called Drakes is a seemingly unlikely story.  The Spanish influence of the western American seaboard is a well known story – the Spanish had

Modern Drakes Bay

been exploring the south American continent as part of trade, plunder and religion for some time – but Sir Francis Drake, an English sea captain and privateer, was commissioned by Queen Elizabeth in 1577 to circumnavigate the globe and wherever possible harass the Spanish fleet and and settlements along the western edges of south and north america.  And so the great journey began in Plymouth England, scuttled along the northern African coast, across to Salvador South America, underneath Cape Horn and finally northward, toward the virtually unknown waters of Lima, Panama and stretching out, like a bow, the western U.S., finally landing at the San Francisco Bay area.

Stories vary, and historians dispute, but Francis Drake, in his renamed ship the Golden Hind, likely landed at what they called Nova Albion (New Britain) below modern Point Reyes seashore.  Drake's fleet had been decimated along the long and taxing journey and, in order to complete the last stretch of the trip west, the Golden Hind had to careen for repairs for six weeks in the naturally protective bay north of San

Golden Hind Replica

Francisco in order to carry-on.  "On September 26, Golden Hind sailed into Plymouth (England) with Drake and 59 remaining crew aboard, along with a rich cargo of spices and captured Spanish treasures.  The Queen's half-share of the cargo surpassed the rest of the crown's income for that entire year.  Drake was hailed as the first Englishman to circumnavigate the Earth."

As the visitor to Point Reyes will hopefully attest, as you walk around the abundance of the landscape, tour the wildflower trails, visit the descending steps to the lighthouse, and overlook the vast lush panorama of nearly old-world farms and ranches, it will be only a slight imaginative leap to picture some 425 years ago as an enormous, if embattled, ship of the sea landed, tipped itself purposefully radically sidewise for the sake of hull repairs and engaged the local tribes in trepidation.  It might not have been thoroughly understood by Drake's paltry crew, especially after such extreme hostility along the upper contours of South America, but the Coast Miwok natives

Artistic rendition of Drake's crew and Miwok at San Francisco area

indigenous to the area were an ancient and peaceful hunting and gathering tribe that sought no trouble with the white strangers but instead tended to approach with local offerings.  It would be this voyage that opened up the ocean routes to San Francisco for English speaking people.  San Francisco would become the epicenter of the merging Spanish and English cultures as we see to this day.

What to Find at Point Reyes, CA

"Never far from the ocean, their striking bluff-top groves seem designed by Japanese printmakers." – Elna Bakker, on describing the Bishop-Pine Forest









May 5


The strongest reported wind gust ever recorded at the Point Reyes Seashore is 130 miles per hour.  Lying underneath Tomales Bay is the most active faultline on the west coast.  Fog hangs so low and so thick at times that it is virtually impossible to conceive of 16th century schooners anchoring along these rock studded shorelines for safe anchor.  It might very well be the volatile nature of the peninsula, aided by the promise of much sunnier micro-climates and unparalleled views, that bring millions of visitors here annually.  As you walk along the Esteros, a quaint and rustic roll to the hills house several still running dairies, which used to grow, produce, and ship from these tumultuous shores to the hungry markets in San Francisco, like Murphy Ranch, the oldest running original operation at Point Reyes proper.

The Bishop-Pine Forest, not far-off, is a great testament to the adaptability of species to climate.  Dependent upon the very moisture and and shaped by the very wind that is feared, the Bishop Pines used to be a strong influence up and down the California coastline, but now reduced to mere pockets where not intruded on.  Much of the Point Reyes stand burned in the 1995 Vision Fire.  "The pines often take on a bonsai-like shape, contorted by strong winds and dwarfed by thin, nutrient-poor soils. Under ideal conditions – bishop pines grow into tall, regal trees, reaching heights between 40 and 70 feet."

One of the more famous batches of these majestic trees rises above a road out the old RCA signal facility, an geographical location that was found to be ideal for picking up radio signal, the very place where Amelia Earhart's last radio signal had landed.

What to Find at Point Reyes, CA

May 4


It would be hard to imagine the prospect of a more dramatic seashore than Point Reyes National Seashore, located around 30 miles north of San Francisco, and a place we hope to visit in mid June.  This is a place of the world where ancient cliffs meet head-on a pounding shore and at the same time hold back at places along its backside bays that are famous for its variety of species and water clean enough to sprout world renown oysters.  If the surface of earth could in some way

indicate activity below the surface, this also would make for the perfect symbol as the great San Andreas Faultline lies directly below. The peninsula that is the shoreline verifiably moves out toward the ocean every year, creating cracks and fissures between masses.  Where great diversity of geography exists so too very often does diversity of species, flora, fauna, and sheer landscape beauty.  "Within the seashore live nearly 15 percent of California's plant species and nearly 30 percent of the world's marine mammal species.  Close to 45 percent of all the bird species in North America visit the seashore."  Surrounding and interlaced within, agriculture, including cattle and dairy, offer bold green backdrops to the plateaued summits of cliffs; looking back over the front sides Drakes Bay (named after the famous Sir Francis Drake who allegedly anchored here on his historical 'world' trip in the late 16th century.  The Reyes point, descending down Chimney Rock trail (watch out for rock slides), is the oft visited Lighthouse built in 1870.  Pre-lighthouse, as records and much lumber at the bottom of the bay attest, this point of the cliff shore was a navigational nightmare, cited as the foggiest geographical position on the entire western shoreline, second only to that at Nantucket over on the other side of the continent.  Although the lighthouse still works to this day, the old hand-cared light itself is now computer generated.  From the lighthouse, 2.7 miles northward to Point Reyes Station, might be a

good place to park the car and take a stop at Osteria Stellina, a small Italian eatery specializing in brokering those locally grown cheeses, prime rib cuts, and oysters on ice.

On the Yahara A-Z

G.

Green Owl.  There is what might be an unverifiable fact floating out there about the Madison food scene: there are more eating establishments per square block here than any other city in America.  As a hopeful observer of this fact – true or not – it's easy to see how this might seem true.  Not only has there been a food renaissance in Madison, but as you walk along the streets of various neighborhoods, east and west, you can still see the old Wisconsin heritage streetside tavern culture alive and often thriving.  And so for every new L'Etoile, Graze or Ocean Grill, there are five old taverns mixed-in still offering ale and grub.  Combined, the old and new create a sort of walkable food zoo and it becomes hard to know how to see it all without instructions.  With all this variety, and knowing Madison's movement towards sustainability and progressive styles of food, it takes a minute to realize that a place like the Green Owl Cafe, a few blocks from our house (and surrounded by those old taverns),

is the only strictly vegan / vegetarian option in the city.  Suffice it to say that even though going meatless is something many folks on the food scene certainly talk about, chefs notoriously like to cook meat and offer customers a diverse selection of proteins.  How to offer only meatless and succeed, then, is a great feat.  Walking past on Atwood street, the Green Owl could just as well be a green bar, connected to the Ideal Bar next door, but this place, along with a thriving trend throughout the city, has chosen an understated location to house an ambitious concept.  Another great example of this is the Manna Cafe, located next to the Maple Bluff neighborhood.  The cafe is tucked back in the elbow of a fairly decrepit old strip mall, next to a neighborhood liquor store; inside, the Manna cafe is one of the more dynamic cafe experiences in the city and run by high quality chefs.  The Gail Ambrosius chocolate shop, just a brief walk from the Green Owl, is not an overwhelmingly shiny modern building, but instead it is one more strong central link connecting people to areas in the city they might not have ever visited otherwise.  The result, in the case of the Atwood district, is a completely overhauled and revitalized portion of the city that had seen its more difficult days up until the mid 1980's.  Build the food joint, and they will come.

The inside of Green Owl is certainly homemade, but authentic and matches its theme and name in a very interesting way. On the menu are items reserved for the adventurous – not so much for their actual taste and texture, but simply because they have not been encountered by most folks like ourselves who are not vegan or vegetarian.  But why not try the Hummus, tabouli, muhammara and baba ganoush with toasted pita? The vegan schnitzel is a "tender protein" topped with a creamy porcini mushroom sauce; the Groundnut stew is traditional African sweet potato dish with cabbage, ginger, peanuts and cilantro, over brown rice with steamed kale.  We tried the TLT with Avocado, not quite knowing what "Smoky tempeh" was, but it was nice.  The dried kale chips good stuff.  Next trip....? The Madison Philly: Beefy seitan thinly sliced on a toasted roll with sautéed peppers and onions and a local Fallin Oats Oatmeal Amber Ale by Hopothesis Brewing Company.  In Madison, you never know what you've got until the plate appears on the table and local brew is poured and served alongside.