CALIFORNIA ON THE WING

Look closely at the rugged, wintry landscapes of the Golden State’s Central Coast, and you might be lucky enough to spot them: red-tailed hawks, yellow-rumped warblers, blue-gray gnatcatchers. encounters these and many more on a bird-watching trip of a li

2021-02-05 - PHOTOGRAPHS BY TOM FOWLKS

A food writer discovers the joys of birdwatching along California’s rugged Central Coast.

BETSY ANDREWS

“It’ssaid the docent, a retiree volunteer. We were standing on a cliff at Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, which occupies a peninsula shaped like a lion’s paw scraping the Pacific just south of Carmel, California. The winter sun glinted off waves that splashed rocks draped in harbour seals. The docent was describing the plight of a three-foot-tall, ear-tufted bird perched near a posse of avian toughs in black, gray, and white formal wear.

“He’s a Brandt’s cormorant, and they’re western gulls,” she said. Come spring, they would all nest there, and the cormorant’s chin would turn blue to attract the ladies. “They’re neighbours, but their relationship is imperfect.” While the gulls’ call acts as a burglar alarm for cormorants by signalling predators, when the cormorant chicks hatch, the gulls are quite likely to eat them.

It’s dog-eat-dog in the bird world, I thought. But despite the neighbourhood politics, I couldn’t blame these seabirds for wanting to raise their young here. Millions of years ago, the North American and Pacific tectonic plates collided, creating the breathtaking, craggy

coastline of Point Lobos we see today. And since it’s a nature reserve, it’s subject to stricter environmental protection than a state park, so the oceanfront real estate is about as pristine as it gets.

The first time I visited, in 2017, I was attending a food festival in Carmel. During a mushroom hunt, Chuck Bancroft, a former ranger who had spent 35 years working at Point Lobos, told me it was “the world’s greatest meeting of land and water.” But when I biked over to see it for myself, I discovered he’d neglected a third of it. For as the brown pelicans mobbing a rock named Bird Island and the black oystercatchers using carrot-like beaks to pluck limpets from tidal pools could tell you, Point Lobos is a trifecta, with the sky that crowns the land and water arguably the most significant part.

That’s why I returned. Since my initial visit, I’ve become a birdwatcher. It’s a way of balancing the incessant eating I do as a food writer with exercise, fresh air, and perspective. This time around, I was upending the equation: with the occasional delicious meal tucked in, I would feast primarily on bird sightings along California’s Central Coast. Food writers may neglect this part of the state, but it’s a cornucopia for bird-watchers, offering rare treats for East Coasters like me.

I planned to head south on a four-day, 274-kilometre sojourn on the Pacific Coast Highway, pausing at the crowdsourced hotspots on my eBird app and logging my own sightings along the way. My main destination: Morro Bay, a bird-silly spot I know well because my partner’s mother, Penny, lives there. Well past autumn’s ferocious fire season, the lush winter period is when birds flock to estuaries. Monterey pine and cypress forests, punctuated by massive coast live oaks, meet cliffsides covered in flowering shrubs and California poppies.

The day before, I’d driven my rental car from San Jose’s airport just over an hour to Mission Ranch, a cluster of sea-view accommodations on a 19th-century former dairy farm. After brunching on an omelette with shrimp and Anaheim peppers, I took a walk at Carmel River State Beach, where the waterway pools into a sandy lagoon that serves as a bird sanctuary. The place teemed with web-footed life: ruddy ducks with powder-blue bills; American widgeons with iridescent eye shadow; northern shovelers, named for their impressive schnozzes.

In Mission Trail Nature Preserve, an Allen’s hummingbird buzzed around my head before careening off toward the park’s native-plant garden. Plump and golden, he had already returned from his annual winter sojourn in Mexico. The species’

habitat is shifting northward as a result of global warming, and it’s also shrinking. The National Audubon Society predicts that, 60 years from now, this tiny bird will have lost 90 per cent of its range.

I thought of him as I drove on from Point Lobos, which was my third stop. Big Sur, the rugged region immediately to the south, has been clobbered by climate change. Between mudslides and wildfires, this part of the Pacific Coast Highway is often impassable, isolating its boho community, as well as fabled landmarks like the luxe Post Ranch Inn. I was lucky to find Highway 1 clear as I crossed Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge. In a cottage nestled beneath a redwood and a rare Santa Lucia fir, Big Sur Bakery bustled with locals eating avocado toast. Steller’s jays—black and blue with pointy heads—loitered near my table, hoping for breakfast scraps.

Six kilometres south, I pulled into a parking lot high above a sea lion rookery dubbed Condor Overlook. North America’s biggest birds, with their three-metre wingspans, gather there in search of blubber-rich carrion. Most wear numbers, like racehorses, as they’ve been tagged by conservationists. In 1987, the species became critically endangered when its population dropped to as few as 27 birds— primarily as a result of lead poisoning from hunters’ bullets in their scavenged food. But that type of ammunition is now outlawed in California, and the condors are a resilient lot. Conservation has increased Big Sur’s wild population to 101, and while August’s Dolan Fire destroyed the sanctuary, nestlings survived by hiding deep inside the hollows of old-growth trees.

About two hours later, I stopped in the surfer town of Cayucos for smoked-albacore tacos at Ruddell’s Smokehouse and ate them on the pier. As the Morro Coast Audubon Society’s online bird guide predicted, I spotted heads bobbing in the waves: surf scoters, an oceangoing duck with a crooked, clown-coloured beak. Occasionally, they disappeared underwater, diving for food against the backdrop of Morro Rock.

FROM THERE I HEADED to Penny’s house in Los Osos. She’s a casual but particularly fortunate bird lover; her sunny, bloomfilled backyard fronts cliffside scruff that tumbles down to the ocean. It’s a magnet for anything with wings. From her large picture windows, she can spy red-shouldered hawks alighting on utility poles, Anna’s hummingbirds zipping among her flowers, turkeys sauntering through her yard. “I don’t have to move,” she said. “They come to me.”

As happy hour approached, Penny suggested we head to Morro Bay’s Embarcadero for oysters at one of the seafood joints that line the working waterfront. Once we’d polished off our beers and bivalves, we strolled over to Morro Rock. The natural formation— remains of an ancient volcano—is a hunting perch for peregrine falcons, the world’s fastest birds. It also forms the clasp of a carabiner-shaped inlet, where a stretch of dunes shelters one of California’s last great estuaries. A designated Important Bird Area, Morro Bay is a major stopover along the Pacific Flyway migratory route. Over the course of a typical winter, its tidal mudflats lure 20,000 shorebirds to binge on small crabs and other invertebrates.