in the Marin Headlands, San Francisco
Out and about
By now the gray whales have begun their ancient march north from the nursery waters of Baja California. Unlike any other, this 12,000-mile (19,312 km) journey is considered the longest known migration of any mammal on Earth. With young in tow, they head towards Alaska and the arctic sea ice. There, where the productive waters of the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort Seas swell with life, the gray whales will feast and raise their young until October when they head south once again.
With a gentle northwesterly wind drifting across the headlands, we scanned the nearshore waters for signs of cetacea. Often a trained and keen eye is required to pull the breadcrumbs from the sea. What we were looking for were the deep exhales of a passing gray whale, nothing more than a momentary whisp of breath amongst the whitecaps and rolling swell. Between us and the whales, tides of surf scoters and double crested cormorants, Brandt’s cormorants, western gulls, and California pelicans came and went presumably in search of roost and rest, food or friends.
Surf Scoters by Glenn Bartley
White-crowned Sparrow by Charles Post
While we scanned the distant horizon, our eyes fixed seaward, I couldn’t help but notice the white crowned sparrows fluttering about. The males proud and vivacious, sang their coastal scrub serenade from the tallest of the coyote brush and lupine that pepper the headlands creating a mosaic well suited for not just the local sparrows but a host of other curious species many of whom feed the hovering red tail hawks that frequent the airspace overhead.
but in fact the Marin Headlands are nested within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, an 82,000-acre nature preserve all within sight and a stone's throw of San Francisco’s urban metropolis. Here where the sloping chapparal ecosystem meets the sea and, in the more northerly facing slopes, redwoods and willow, I find myself at a unique confluence of ecosystems.
Depending on where you plant your feet, and at what point in any given season you make a visit will influence who you’re likely to meet on any particular foray into the field. And it’s precisely this probability of encountering biodiversity that makes this slice of nature, this corner of the globe among my favorite places to lean into my binoculars and take a good look around.
关于作者：
查尔斯·波斯特
是蒙大拿州的生态学家、探险家俱乐部会员、获奖电影制作人。他喜欢观鸟、打猎，以及与妻子雷切尔·波尔和他们的萨摩耶犬克努特一起探索山脉。在加州大学伯克利分校进行了近十年实地工作和学习，并获得生态学学士和硕士学位后，查尔斯开始了一段充满创意的旅程，涉及到从挪威北极地区三趾鸥数量的减少到北美迁徙猛禽的美丽和脆弱等一系列课题。
如需了解更多信息和有趣的冒险，请访问他们的 Instagram 账号： @charles_post 和 @rachel.pohl。
