Kellie and I had a chance to visit San Diego in June.
We saw California Ground Squirrels - they were smaller than the ones we saw in Yosemite last year, but definitely the same species. Don't be fooled by its similarly appearance to the gray squirrels we have in the midwest and east -iit is actually a ground squirrel, not an arboreal squirrel. The biggest giveaway is that the California Ground Squirrel walks along the ground and does not hop like our arboreal squirrels do. They are also much less likely to climb trees, although you will see them in the branches from time to time.
We saw California Ground Squirrels - they were smaller than the ones we saw in Yosemite last year, but definitely the same species. Don't be fooled by its similarly appearance to the gray squirrels we have in the midwest and east -iit is actually a ground squirrel, not an arboreal squirrel. The biggest giveaway is that the California Ground Squirrel walks along the ground and does not hop like our arboreal squirrels do. They are also much less likely to climb trees, although you will see them in the branches from time to time.
We saw many cool and exotic (to Minnesotans) things down along the seashore. We visited the famous children's beach in La Jolla that is now full of seals.
While getting our fill of seals, we saw one that looked a little different. We quickly recognized that it was a sea lion (or, technically, an eared seal), but it seemed to doing something weird with its head.
Unfortunately, it turns out that the sea lion had some fishing line and a hook stuck in its skin and around its head. We saw this after looking through the binoculars and reported it to the seal protection volunteers that were staffing the beach that day. The volunteers had already reported the poor sea lion, and Sea World staff had already come out to see if they could help. Sadly, they determined that there was nothing they could do at that time because the sea lion was in amongst all the seals, and helping the sea lion would disturb all the seals around.
On a brighter note, we did see a toucan!
As you might guess, it wasn't a wild toucan, but one that was part of the wild bird show at the San Diego Zoo.
One of the cooler exhibits that we saw at the zoo was one where they had information about extinct animals that used to live in California, and compared them to the most similar animal alive today. We got our picture taken next to this statue of a giant ground sloth!
These beasts roamed the Americas before humans showed up. Ever since finding out about strange and wonderful large animals that used to live here before the arrival of humans in my Conservation Biology class in grad school, I have been fascinated by the idea of such creatures as giant ground sloths, sabre-tooth lions, dire wolves, wooly mammoths, and teratorns (giant extinct predatory birds). I was hoping for more information about the dire wolf, and maybe even a statue, but it didn't make the cut.
Back along the seashore, we went out to Cabrillo National Monument to look at the tidepools. We were there at the wrong time of year for ideal viewing, but we still saw some cool things.
Here was a crack in the rock that was about 8 feet above the water line, but looked like a crab hotel when you peeked in!
And many creatures that don't seem much like what we have in MN!
It was a just a short, fortuitous trip to San Diego, but it is always fun to visit a new place!
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