Early February in North America
Merry Christmas fellow mammalwatchers!
next early February I will be visiting Las Vegas for work and I’m thinking adding ~4d for mammals. Thinking about some good weather escape, and chances at mountain lions, I was eying SE Arizona flying to Tucson and driving south. Reading some reports, people tend to go there later in the year, though.
I could also easily fly through California or Vancouver, if that time of the year would be better for some special mammal (whales?).
in any case, I’m open to suggestions 😊
best
Francesco
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5 Comments
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charleswhood
To add to that, I assume you know this, but if you have a hire car, do not park in San Francisco, Berkeley, or Oakland and leave anything visible in the car. Break-ins are fewer than a year ago but still, via photography forums, one hears many, many horror stories. Once out of the urban area and into what is called North Bay (Marin and Sonoma counties), risk is significantly less. So wait until there to get your groceries, for example. Rented cars usually have a small bar code on the window, so thieves know to break into those vehicles first.
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charleswhood
If you go to Tucson, current (Dec 2024) success rate on bobcats at Sweetwater Treatment Plant seems to be about 50%, so long as you remember that usually one morning a week they open late due to mosquito abatement. If there before main preserve opens, look across the street (N side) to the new area, since bobcats hunt there too. This is more of birding site than mammal one. On your way to Cave Creek, Madera Canyon is always worth a night, for ringtail, raccoon, skunks, and the 1% chance of a puma. All of these areas are very very well covered by previous trip reports. To clarify, the SF city area is not a post-apocalyptic wasteland of crime and zombies, but I do think one needs to be aware of the greater odds of break-in there, and to plan accordingly. Even the Oakland In-and-Out hamburger depot has closed down due to crime. Yet with an equal amount of effort, in winter I think you would see more mammals overall (and see more taxonomic diversity) at Point Reyes than you would in Arizona. If this is your first visit to Arizona, know too that it is an open-carry state, meaning exposed handguns are legal for the average person (or at least the average white male) to wear on a belt or keep in a car. Yee-haw, let’s all pretend to be cowboys.
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Francesco Cuzzola
Thank you, Charles. I’ve been to SF in 2016 – that time we had 5d in the city, 1d in Monterey and 2w in GYE. So Point Reyes sounds good. I’ve never been to Arizona and I thought it could be interesting for mammals and for hiking, given the weather. I also remember that Doug Peacock used to winter in Az before spending time with the grizzlies in Montana, so it sounds promising.
What about Nevada per se? Anything reachable from Vegas that could yield some interesting mammal?
thank you once more!
Francesco
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charleswhood
Most airlines service Las Vegas but one that tries to avoid aggregate sites like Expedia is Southwest. To see their options you usually have to go directly to their own website. One location to think about is Point Reyes via hire car out of SFO (San Francisco) or Oakland (what is called East Bay, as a region). That could be good for bobcat, coyote, gray fox, striped skunk, sonoma chipmunk, tule elk, elephant seal, gray whale. If you really want to emphasize puma, there are no guaranteed sites, but the Cave Creek Canyon area of Southeastern Arizona is best, and in winter, sometimes there is a habituated spotted skunk at Cave Creek Ranch. If flying into Tucson, it is worth checking Sabino Canyon at dusk, especially if you have a thermal scope, since I heard a second-hand report of a puma there about a month ago. Rain in February at Pt Reyes is possible; for a “La Nina” year, Northern California has had a LOT of storms. (Southern California has had almost none.) The storms this year have been atmospheric rivers, which lead to road closures due to flooding and fallen trees; the Point Reyes Christmas bird count was hindered by that this year. Not to be too discouraging, but as a very wild guess, you have a 20% chance of being “weathered out” on Pt Reyes in February? Maybe a bit less than that… 10%? It is though the “rainy” part of the year, and it’s usually a pretty heavy rain, not a British drizzle. Or it might be warm and dry, with blue skies and no wind. No way to be certain, this far in advance. / Charles Hood