This week while most of the country either swelters in the heat or blows away from tornadoes our lot here on the northern California coast is the foggy days and weather under 65 degrees with nights around 52 to 54 degrees. Though this isn't unusual for here I still miss the sunny days of living in Southern California in places like Glendale and Vista and Tujunga and Encinitas when I was a child and young man still.
However, it is nice to live near the ocean without the traffic levels which can be maddening in one way or another there too. So, everywhere you might live has it's good and bad points and you don't get one thing without the other.
Where we live it is a tourist trap during the summers too as people come here to get out of the 100 plus temperatures every day and they come from all over the world to be cooler than 100 degrees especially in May through October. Buses especially from Asia filled with Chinese people, S. Koreans, Japanese and other Asian people show up to see the sites along the coast, especially where all the birds and sea lions and Sea Otters frolic a lot with ease. The newer buses allow people to sit or to sleep on board the buses so they can get out and see the sights but have everything self contained for a real budget trip from Asia in a package. So, periodically at beautiful places on these trips from Asia people are allowed to get out of the bus at various locations. Yesterday I was trying to walk my dog on the beach and found more people there than I have ever seen before and 3 buses at one point watching the sea lions and birds especially Comorants on rocks off shore but not too far so they could get good pictures to take home with them.
Here is more on Cormorant birds if you are interested. They are one of the few birds that are designed pretty much to live at sea while fishing. They only HAVE to come closer to shore on rocks for nesting. So, they are unusual in this as birds as most birds need to spend more time on land.
For example, Sea Gulls hunt for fish all day too but then when they are filled up with fish tend to roost on land unless people are close and then they will fly away. But, Comorants seldom come onto the land. But, I have seen them roost in trees along the ocean in Santa Barbara too. So, I guess there are comorants and there are comorants with different behaviors around too.
For some reason my computer isn't listing a URL for this site on Comorants so I guess you will have to use the blue or purple links here instead.
Cormorants
and shags are medium-to-large birds, with body weight in the range of
0.35–5 kilograms (0.77–11.02 lb) and wing span of 60–100 centimetres
(24–39 in) ...
From a distance, Double-crested Cormorants are dark birds with snaky necks, but up-close they're quite colorful—with orange-yellow skin on their face and throat ...
Pelagic cormorants live along open, windswept coasts. They nest along with other cormorants and other seabirds on steep, remote cliffs where they're safer from ...
This
dark, long-bodied diving bird floats low in the water with its thin
neck and bill raised; perches upright near water with wings half-spread
to dry.
Jul 14, 2023 — Cormorants
have been the bane of fishermen since time immemorial. They are a very
recognizable black and gray seabird with a very long neck ...
Like the double-crested cormorants, these cormorants are relatively coastal birds and often rest or roost on piers, breakwaters and small islands. Loose bands ...
Cormorants
need places with nighttime roosts and daytime resting or loafing areas
during all seasons. They roost on sandbars, rocky shoals, cliffs and
offshore ...
The double-crested cormorant is a large, black water bird with a long, hooked bill. It lives year-round on the Chesapeake Bay's shallow and open waters.
Phalacrocoracidae
is a family of approximately 40 species of aquatic birds commonly known
as cormorants and shags. Several different classifications of the
family have been proposed, but in 2021 the International Ornithologists'
Union adopted a consensus taxonomy of seven genera.Wikipedia
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