A field guide to best wildlife viewing
In times of despair, some find that nature and wildlife can provide a gateway to a simple world with harmony, fulfillment and adventure. Perhaps this can be a way for anybody to get a restart on life and find something to look forward to.
After Sunday’s events, I found myself walking through that gateway once again this week.
There’s a lesson here: One of the great rewards of wildlife watching and photography is that they will take you places you otherwise would not have visited. At any time, they allow you to leave the rest of the world behind.
To make it work, I keep a lifetime checklist for wildlife. I printed it here as a sidebar, so anybody can clip to use. Species-by-species, this is the top 10 for fall and winter, and the places where I have had the best sightings. Always bring binoculars.
1. Elk: Pierce Ranch, Point Reyes National Seashore, Marin; Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, Humboldt County; Cache Creek Wildlife Area, Lake County; Grizzly Island Wildlife Area (closed to public through winter), Solano County.
Personal notes: This month, the big bulls with the Hartford commercial-like antlers have gathered their harems of 20 to 25 cows. The reject bulls, which lost fights and have no females, often hang out together in groups of a half dozen. If you can’t walk, you often can see the rejects near the parking lot at Pierce Ranch. Hikers take the Tomales Point Trail, then when encountering a game trail on your right, trace it to a sub ridge, then slowly peer over the top to sight the herds.
2. Humpback whales: Monterey Submarine Canyon, Moss Landing/Monterey; Farallon Islands National Marine Sanctuary; San Mateo County coast, out of Pillar Point Harbor, Princeton.
Personal notes: In October, the 40-foot humpbacks reach their greatest numbers off the Monterey and Bay Area coasts. You often can get the calmest days of the year on the ocean. There is no better time to see the great show where humpbacks rocket in the air, pirouette and land on their backs. On flat, calm dawns, I’ve kayaked out of Moss Landing and had them all around me. 3. Sea otters: Mouth of Elkhorn Slough, Moss Landing; Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, Carmel; cove of Sand Point Beach, Wilder Ranch State Park, Santa Cruz; north jetty, Pillar Point Harbor, Princeton; Bolinas Lagoon County Park, Marin.
Personal notes: The best wildlife date in California is to rent a tandem kayak at Moss Landing and then paddle to Elkhorn Slough. You’ll see harbor seals and sea lions along the jetty. Then, near the mouth of the jetty and harbor, you can float around and the otters often swim right up to you. I’ve had them swirl on my right, dive under my kayak, then swirl on my left.
4. Bear: Dorst Creek Campground/Generals Highway, Sequoia National Park; Ukonom Basin, Marble Mountain Wilderness; McCloud Flats, Siskiyou County; Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park; Emeric Lake, Yosemite Wilderness.
Personal notes: Bears in California are mainly docile and tend to repeat their routes. That means you can scout game trails to see where they eat, sleep and drink, and you then can intercept them on their routes. It’s a hobby of mine to sneak up on them, stand there undetected, and in a calm voice, say “Boo,” and watch them hurtle off. Do not try this in the Canadian Rockies or Alaska, where black bears can be dangerous.
5. Waterfowl: Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge (driving tour), south of Willows; Colusa National Wildlife Refuge (driving tour), Colusa; kayak sloughs out of Skaggs Island, Napa-Sonoma Marsh Wildlife Area; San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Newark; Palo Alto Baylands; Bothin Marsh, Sausalito.
Personal notes: In the fall, one of the greatest moments of fulfillment in nature is watching a marsh awaken at dawn. Waterfowl, shorebirds and songbirds, up to a million at a time in your scope of view, will rocket, soar, swirl, hover and dive. The sounds of their squawks, quacks and tweets will imprint you for life.
6. Deer: Las Trampas Valley, Foothills Park (Palo Alto residents only), Palo Alto; Timber Mountain (in late November, early December), Modoc County; Mount Burdell, Marin; Crystal Springs Watershed, from Lower Crystal Springs; Rancho San Antonio Open Space Preserve, Cupertino.
Personal notes: At dusk, there’s a time we call “the witching hour.” It’s when all the deer (and many other critters) emerge to feed. You can spend all day in a sure-thing habitat and not see a thing, and then suddenly at dusk, the herd emerges. The single-best day I had was in the first week of December at Timber Mountain, which is located west of Highway 139 in remote Modoc. In a few hours, where we drove up to the crowned-type summit and then traced out game trails on the flanks, we saw more than 500 deer.
7. Bald eagles: Tule Lake, Klamath National Wildlife Refuge; Shasta Lake and Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, Shasta County; Lewiston/Trinity lakes (adjoin), Trinity County; Lake San Antonio, Monterey County.
Personal notes: The expansion of the bald-eagle population means that people will sight bald eagles in many areas. The most amazing single moment is in winter, when migrants have flown from Alaska to Northern California, and is called the Bear Valley Fly Out. You position yourself on Bear Valley Road (just off Keno-Worden Road, just off Highway 97 near Oregon); at dawn, the eagles will start flying from their nightly roosts to the refuge in the valley, where you can see up to 300 in a series of pulses.
8. Sierra bighorn sheep: Pine Creek Canyon and canyons just above the floor of Round Valley near Bishop, including Sawmill Canyon, Taboose Canyon, Inyo National Forest; Cathedral Range (wilderness), Yosemite National Park.
Personal notes: Drive to the end of dirt roads at the foot of the canyons in the Eastern Sierra, then trek into the canyon entrances. Stop and scan with binoculars, over and over. The bighorns are camouflaged with the rock background, and at first, will seem invisible. Once you get the hang of it, it’s common to see a half dozen to 20 per day.
9. Major raptors/golden eagles: Sunol Regional Wilderness, Sunol; Los Vaqueros Watershed, Livermore; Napa-Sonoma Marsh Wildlife Area.
Personal note: The best way to see golden eagles is to fish at Los Vaqueros Reservoir. Rent a boat and keep your binoculars ready. It’s common for 12 to 15, sometimes more, to spend their winter at the lake. They can emerge at any time.
10. Sandhill crane: Woodbridge Ecological Reserve, Lodi; Soda Lake, Carrizo Plain Natural Area (in late winter).
Personal note: Right on schedule, the sandhill cranes have started arriving at the Woodbridge Ecological Reserve; the first sandhill-crane tour (sold out) of the season is this weekend. The evening fly-out can be spectacular, where these long, slender birds can look like something right out of “Jurassic Park.” Tom Stienstra’s Outdoor Report can be heard at 7:35 a.m., 9:35 a.m. and 12:35 p.m. Saturdays on KCBS (740 and 106.9). Email: tstienstra@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @StienstraTom