Double-crested cormorant near Monterey, California

This double-crested cormorant was resting on rocks along the coast between Monterey and Pacific Grove, California. Cormorants are fish-eating birds that can hunt their prey in both salt and fresh water. They can be found along the coast as well as along rivers. This one seemed quite content to rest close to the walkway that follows the coast, despite the people passing by.

Cormorants' eyes work better in air than they do in water. According to a study of the greater cormorant in England, cormorants only see well enough to catch fish about 1 meter (3 feet) in front of them and their snake-like necks allow them to strike quickly at a fish that is within range. The small tooth-like structures in the bill point backwards and keep the fish from escaping after the bird bites down.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

Pigeon Point Lighthouse lit up

Pigeon Point Lighthouse on the central California coast is one of the tallest lighthouses on the West Coast of the United States.  It has been replaced in its duties by an aerobeacon and is now a state historic park.  In mid-November, the rangers would turn on the lighthouse in an annual lighting ceremony to commemorate its very first lighting on November 15, 1872.  This is an image of that lit-up lighthouse showing the spokes-of-light pattern that the Fresnel lens creates.  The rotating lens would create a flash pattern that was unique to each lighthouse, so that mariners could time the flashes and know which lighthouse they were seeing.

The tower at Pigeon Point has been closed to the public since 2001, because it was deemed unsafe.  The state parks department has begun restoring this tower and the first step in the process was removing the historic Fresnel lens, so that it wouldn't be damaged during the tower's reconstruction process.  So, the good news is that the lens is safe, but the bad news is that the annual lighting of the lighthouse won't happen again for many years, until the restoration is complete and the lens is returned to the top of the tower.

This image was shot at ISO 1600, so it's showing some digital noise.  The very thin fog that helped accentuate the spokes of light, also helped blur the moon in the upper right.

Remember, it's not just a photo, it's a story.