True Nature Stories: Kehoe Beach

Blue-Beaked Amigos

As I hiked around a bend toward Kehoe Beach this morning, spooking brush rabbits and sparrows back into the dewy jungle of mustard, radish, and poison hemlock that hugged the narrow trail, my eyes lit up when a small chocolate-brown bobcat executed a rapid, low scuttle away from me for maybe ten yards before ducking off the trail. It happened so fast that I couldn't get a shot despite the fact that I had already mounted my long lens to the tripod in anticipation of just such a lucky encounter.

I would get one more chance to photograph a bobcat as I was leaving for home. Although the cat ducked into the roadside vegetation when he saw me, I stopped my car, turned off the motor, and waited to see if he'd come back out. The park roads provide very few places to pull off the road to appreciate views or look for wildlife, but since it was still early Tuesday morning, I was able to just stop in the road with no other cars passing by.

After a few minutes of keeping my eyes and ears open I heard a twig snap behind me. I looked over my shoulder but didn't immediately see that the cat had re-emerged onto the road, and by the time I finally saw it padding away I was only able to fire off two frames before he sped up and moved out of range.

My initial purpose for driving out to Kehoe was the hope of finding another group of juvenile peregrine falcons like the ones I photographed in 2018 (a year when I didn't blog). This time I saw only one juvenile, and with no boisterous siblings urging it on, it simply clung to a cliff ledge near its nest the whole time I was there, never coming down to the beach.

Not only did I see no beach falcons during my walk, but the only birds I did see were a handful of widely scattered gulls. It was a bit of bum luck to go along with the foggy, drizzly morning until my spirits rose at the sharp whistle of a black oystercatcher. On my way back down the beach I was able to hang out with a few of them as they relaxed on a seaweed-draped rock.

A little farther down the beach I watched a great blue heron hunting at the water's edge, plucking little mole crabs out of their sandy, salty lair. The heron appeared to make a jab at a fish when it ventured into slightly deeper water at one point but came up empty.

In addition to the usual wildflower suspects such as yellow bush lupine, seaside daisy, lizard tail, paintbrush, and yarrow, I discovered a species I'd never really appreciated before, with its twirling inflorescence reminiscent of a Christmas tree, called silver beachweed. I've probably picked its burrs out of my socks without knowing where they'd come from.