Exiles on a Maine street

Thursday, September 17, 2026

Day 19.250: Sea Otter

At time of writing, I am still in Chicago waiting for a flight home. It’s looking hopeful that I’ll be home while it’s still Thursday, but time will tell. As a result, I haven’t had chance to download and examine my bird pictures to confirm what I saw, that will have to wait until at least tomorrow. I did manage to use the WiFi capability of the camera to download a few photos of this surprise sighting.

During my first visit to Moss Landing State Beach yesterday, still in the murky morning light I saw something in the water that I first supposed was a rock, then briefly thought it might be a couple of birds - prompting a closer look. It was neither of those things. It was a sea otter just living its best life.

Wednesday, September 16, 2026

Day 19.249: Northern California

My day and a half in California is nearly over. I leave to fly back early tomorrow morning. Today I managed to squeeze in: the meeting/training session I came to do, lunch with my colleagues in the Artichoke Center of the World (a small town called Castroville) and two sessions of birding at Moss Landing State Beach (one at dawn and the other in the mid-afternoon. Most of the interesting photos are in camera purgatory until I get home, but here are a few from my phone.

Birds at dawn

There's a sea otter in this photo - but you might have to take my word for it for today

Moss Landing Jetty

No great surprise to see a sandy beach on this blog, but that's the Pacific Ocean (Monterey Bay) for a change

Tuesday, September 15, 2026

Day 19.248: Aerial

I spent most of the day making my way to San Jose, California - I knew how to get on the right plane - I was trusting that the pilots would know the way. Here are some pictures I took along the way.

Dawn in Portland, Maine

Leaving Portland

The mountains of New Hampshire

At one point it seemed like the pilot actually didn’t know the way

But it turned out he had to take a longer route to prevent us arriving too early in Chicago

Leaving Chicago

The clouds cleared over Nevada

Farming must be quite an operation here

Near the middle of this photo is the town of Goldfield, Nevada

This is the nearby Lithium mine at Silver Peak

Hammil Valley, California

Bishop, CA

The Sierra Nevada. Yosemite was probably visible from the windows on the north side of the plane

The edge of the desert - everything to the left of this is sand colored

Coming in to land at San Jose airport

Monday, September 14, 2026

Day 19.247: Mount Agamenticus

Exile #2 and I climbed Agamenticus early on Saturday afternoon. We knew it wasn’t the best chance of a large hawk migration event, but it was a day we had time to do it in the general window.

We didn’t see any hawks, and few bird of any kind:

Turkey vulture

Chipping sparrow

Downy woodpecker

…but it was a lovely day for a short steep hike up the mountain and down again.

Sunday, September 13, 2026

Day 19.246: Exile #2’s Sunday Column #565

Exile #2 writes…

I skipped our nature group last weekend, as I was feeling somewhat exhausted from our very busy vacation. But Exile #1 brought me back a token from the walk - a conker! This is a rare treasure here in New England, as Horse Chestnut trees are not native. From the late 18th century, however, a few began to be introduced in parks and leafy neighborhoods and so, once in a while, we will stumble on one. I just enjoy the way they look and feel. Exile #1, however, introduced the group to the other important purpose that conkers serve in British society!