Hi. We took a field trip today with the Olympus D-450 camera, and I thought I would share a few of the shots. Marcia and I visited Natural Bridges State Park, in Santa Cruz. On our way in, we spotted the guests to the left, and thought you would like a look at the feral cats who live in the park. On the off chance I was wrong (they are ALL black), that could be a coven. There are more cats that you can't see in that shot, and they OWN that bench. To the right is the sign describing the inhabitants of one of the groves of eucalyptus trees in the park. Natural Bridges is one of the North American sites where the Monarch butterflies over-winter.

To the left is the biggest image linked, at 220K, of a clump of butterflies. They gather like that for stability and warmth. On a slightly warmer day, there would have been more activity, and a LOT more color, as we have seen on other visits, in the past. They may look like leaves in that shot, but the leaves are the green bits. The sign in the entry point to the area said that there were probably only about 10,000 butterflies in the grove today. Individual Monarchs were about, however. To the right is a pair that was hanging out on a plant next to the path.

We got that pair to model for us on Marcia's freshly manicured hands. You can see that one butterfly appears to be surviving the winter in a lot better shape than the other, though there really haven't been any storms worthy of the name yet, this year. To the right, down off the beach, is one of the namesake bridges in the rock, formed by wave action over the years. There were at least 3 bridges when I was in Santa Cruz at school, a few years back. Most of them came down in the storms of '80/'81.

Near the water's edge, in front of the rock just shown, I found a seagull to play with. Playing with a seagull usually involves trying to bring it down with whatever comes to hand. If a firearm doesn't come to hand, usually one does not bring the bird down. The bird, however, will bring you down, with precision aimed dive bombing. Fortunately evaded that fate this time, but they will know, and get even. Then, to the right, on the rocks over by the singularly uninteresting tide pools, the waves crashed upon the rocks.

Down on the rock itself, as the wave washed over the quickly (in geologic terms) eroding shales, I found a nice play on rock, water and light. This is now my new desktop wallpaper, in the 400K format. If anyone would like the hi-res version, please give me a holler. To the right, you see the native Californian nesting habit - stupid, isn't it. I know people whose houses were eaten by the ocean, and they weren't as close as this maroon. Admittedly, the resident may have been further from the water, when the building began, but what with sea levels rising, and the earth is surely going to quake again someday, I think beachfront property in Auburn wouldn't be out of line...

To the left, at the base of the cliff, between wave and rock, you see Marcia, playing a for-keeps version of pickup sticks with Mother Nature. She (Marcia) thinks she wants a little keepsake of our trip down here, and the butterflies kept dying when she put them in her pocket. So, this instead. To the right you can see the consequences of fooling with Mother Nature. No, not really, just kidding. No Marcias were hurt in the making of this field trip. The fresh fall shown is very common here, though. Really makes me wonder why they built within, say, 500 yards of the edge, eh?

Lastly, for this version of reality, anyway, is a shot of the lighthouse. Aside from the obvious functions, it is also the Santa Cruz Surfing Museum, and separates the Town and Boardwalk areas of SC from the West Cliff residential areas, which lie roughly between the lighthouse and Natural Bridges. We had fun.

Marcia's trip report, accessible soon, off of her Musings page at DutchGirl, will probably have different pictures, and be about some other trip entirely, if my experience with disparate reporting of the same events by different observers holds true. Ta ta.

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