During my last to visits the gate was locked and I couldn't get to them, but today I'm luckier and can watch them lying, swimming around and climbing.
I'm not alone here, a couple with a huge video camera and another couple in a boat, also well equipped with cameras, is as interested in them as I am.
"Sea lions are noisy. Males bark to threaten each other." We even hear them at night in our house. Since now I've never seen so many sea lions actually swimming in the sea. Seems as if mating season has begun.
"The California Sea Lion (Zalophus californianus) is a coastal sea lion of the eastern Pacific often associated with marinas and wharves. Males grow to 340 kg (750 pounds) and 2.4 m (8 feet) long, females are generally no larger than 100 kg (220 pounds) and 2m (6.5 feet) long."
"A raised flipper helps keep the body temperature comfortable. The flipper's blood vessels are close to the skin's surface. Water evaporating of a flipper cools the blood. A sunbathed ddry flipper warms the blood."
"Males grow a large crest of bone on the top of their heads as they reach sexual maturity, and it is this that gives the animal its generic name (loph is "forehead" and za- is an emphatic; Zalophus californianus means "Californian Big-head")."
"The Western Gull, Larus occidentalis, is a large white-headed gull that lives on the western coast of North America. It was previously considered conspecific with the Yellow-footed Gull (Larus livens) of the Gulf of California. The Western Gull ranges from Washington and British Columbia to Baja California, and because of its convenient colonies on the coast of California it is well studied. Despite being a well-known bird species on the West Coast of the US, it is of some slight conservation concern given its restricted range (for a gull)." Jon calls them "trash birds".
The Check Mate is just one of Monterey's Whale Watching boats.
"California Sea Lions feed on a wide variety of seafood including fish, shellfish and squid. They are excellent predators with a streamlined body and highly sensitive whiskers to detect food."
A sea lion has large feet! The animals are so close that I could have stepped on this one's flipper. I'd never do anything like that, of course!
"California Sea Lions are highly sociable and gather in large numbers on beaches and coasts."
"California Sea Lions are intelligent and adaptable, and are often trained as entertainers at ocean parks and zoos as well as by researchers studying interspecies cooperation in the marine environment. They are also used in military applications as sentries, and for equipment recovery, by the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program."
"The Brandt's Cormorant (Phalacrocorax penicillatus ) is a strictly marine bird of the cormorant family of seabirds that inhabits the Pacific coast of North America. It ranges, in the summer, from Alaska to the Gulf of California, but the population north of Vancouver Island migrates south during the winter."
This sea lion seems to pose for my camera. Or does he want to threaten me?
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