September 14, 2012

On The Road: Sea Lions, Bird Rock, the Stench

Sea lions on Bird Rock.
Just a portion of the hundreds of sea lions that hang out at Bird Rock, off the Monterey Peninsula.

My little point-and-shoot camera can't really capture much resolution at that distance, but take my word for it, there were lots of them.

And they stink. I have seen sea lions before, but never what looked like a sea lion feedlot.

The wind off the rock is like dog anal-gland secretion times one thousand. The old days of guano-mining here cannot have been any worse.

1 comment:

Reid Farmer said...

Yes they do. Week before last I was doing some fieldwork in the San Diego area and one evening went over to La Jolla Cove. The wind wafted up the scent of a bunch of sea lions hanging out on the rocks there.

I've also noticed that bats in large numbers also exude a stinky dirty dog like smell as well.