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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3 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
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