Bay Area Wildlife

The hotel we stayed at in Santa Cruz was near the ocean. So near the ocean that we could hear the sounds of sea lions barking. When we walked out on the pier, we noticed that the sea lions were treating the boat launching pads like low-lying rocks.

There were between ten and fifteen sea lions mostly sleeping, but some were swimming and others woke up to protect their spot on the raft. We were no more than five feet away from them and one of the girls got a clever photo of her toes and the sea lions below. We watched them for quite a while, amused at their antics.

Later while walking on the beach, there was a large flock of pelicans, easily over one hundred strong. There must have been a school of fish, because they were continually diving, then flying up into the air  to dive again. I love pelicans and I especially love to watch them dive from a height into the water.

I took a bunch of photos of the pelicans and this is one of the best. I even managed to shoot some video with my new camera. Unfortunately, I didn't get one diving on film. Nevertheless, if I ever figure out how to download the video, I'll post it here first.