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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Xenospiza" data-source="post: 1382672" data-attributes="member: 23772">Dec 21: With two t-shirts and a sweater it wasn’t cold, but I slept bad enough to awake only when it was really light. I walked through San Simeon State Park for about three hours. There are quite a few Monterey Pines there, and the expected Pygmy Nuthatch was easily found. They were so noisy that I wondered how I could have missed them in Texas. One of their calls sounds exactly like a rubber duck. Chestnut-backed Chickadee was common here, as was the case anywhere further north. I also encountered Western Grey Squirrels and Brush Rabbit, but only when I came across some old Eucalyptus trees I found the bird I really wanted to see: Townsend’s Warbler. I had never really warmed to its pictures, and it was nice to be proven wrong. I don’t really like all those exotic Eucalyptus trees, but they are a good place to find birds when they are in flower.I left the park and headed to nearby Piedras Blancas. On the way I just had to look to the right to see the distant but apparently very much worth-a-visit Hearst Castle. At Piedras Blancas, all cars on this rather empty road appeared to have had the same destination as me: the Northern Elephant-Seal colony. They are present year-round, but not all ages or sexes are there at any given time. Bulls are present and aggressive in late autumn–early winter. Indeed, their dozing intermittantly gave way to posturing, but there was no drawing blood while I was there. The first pups are born late December, and apparently there was one hidden somewhere.When I had had enough of the crowd and the well-meaning volunteers I headed further north along the Cabrillo Highway to Monterey. The weather got worse – and I got a headache which also got worse. Probably the effects of not having drunk coffee. A short stop along the way near some nice-looking chapparal at Willow Creek was not very productive. I missed a few opportunities to head up the mountains at more attractive looking sites, but the immediate area near the road looked pretty treeless for most of the time. Lime Kiln State Park was closed because the whole area had been burnt down; at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park the interesting-looking path through some redwoods was closed. It then really started to rain, which reduced the chance of seeing a (non-countable, but who cares) Californian Condor pretty much to zero, and I only found a White-tailed Kite (the only one of the trip though).The weather (and headache) also stopped me from exploring either Pfeiffer-Big Sur or Andrew Molera State Park, where Pacific Winter Wren should be present. I went to bed very, very early in Monterey.Pictures: Northern Elephant-Seal from a distance (and <a href="http://www.digiscooppix.nl/album_page.php?pic_id=9419" target="_blank"> through my scope</a>); chaparral in Big Sur (near Willow Creek).</blockquote>

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