Elephant seal season

Once again... these photos are a bit delayed. These were taken at the end of January at Point Conception. Elephant seal season starts around Christmas and by now most to all the new pups have been weaned from their mom.

Elephant seal mom and pup (Mirounga angustirostris) with umbilicus still attached

Elephant seal mom and pup (Mirounga angustirostris) with gull going after umblilcus

Monarch season

**I was holding off on posting this (I took this photo in NOVEMBER!) because I figured I would have more photos from the monarch season here. I only live 2 miles from one of the biggest congregations of winter monarchs in California. Sadly, life got in the way and I haven't been there (with my camera) since November.**

This photo was on an overcast day in November, but the orange still looks quite nice. Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) migrate to the west coast every winter. At the Ellwood Mesa there are up to 20,000 hanging out on the Eucalyptus trees.

Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) on Eucalyptus

Stop! For photos

I was on a bit of a photography hiatus for the past two months. I have a bunch of photos that are in the post process phase. Hopefully I will get them up soon!

Today is just a few photos. This is an osprey (Pandion haliaetus) that I encountered one day while at work. It is kind of funny to me that they stopped to have a halibut lunch on a stop sign.

Stop! For some halibut. Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) and pacific halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis)

Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) with a halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis)