Los Angeles & Southern California - Andrea Schulte-Peevers [38]
Animals
When it comes to animals in SoCal, think big. School-bus big. Sixteen-ton gray whale big. Although these fascinating creatures don’t exactly have a permanent LA address, gray whales generally grace the region with their presence every year between December and April. That’s when they migrate along the Pacific coast, traveling from their summer feeding grounds in the arctic Bering Sea, through to their southern breeding grounds off Baja California – and then all the way back again. You can watch them spout and breach from such shoreline viewing spots as the Cabrillo National Monument at Point Loma in San Diego or Point Vicente in Los Angeles. Better yet, it’s well worth heading out to meet them on their turf by going on a whale-watching tour Click here.
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Take a virtual field trip courtesy of the myriad links put together by the California Geological Survey at www.conservation.ca.gov/cgs/geotour.
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Any time of year, you’ll see pods of bottle-nosed dolphins and porpoises frolicking just offshore. If you’re lucky, you may even get to swim along with these smiley mammals. To see pinnipeds such as clumsy seals, barking sea lions and playful sea otters in the wild rather than at SeaWorld, you’ll probably have to travel to the Channel Islands National Park. They’re cute, they’re worth it and kids love ’em.
Out on the boat, or just standing on the beach, you’ll also spot plenty of winged creatures, including hefty pelicans darting for lunch like top gun pilots, and skinny sandpipers foraging for invertebrates in the wet sand. SoCal is also an essential stop on the migratory Pacific Flyway between Alaska and Mexico. Almost half the bird species in North America use local coastal and inland refuges for rest and refueling. Grab a pair of binoculars and scan the skies for avocets, green-winged teals and northern pintails at Malibu Lagoon State Beach in Los Angeles, Bolsa Chica State Ecological Reserve or Newport Bay Ecological Reserve in Orange County, or the Batiquitos Lagoon in San Diego.
Also keep an eye out for the regal bald eagle, which soared off the endangered species list in 2007. A bunch of them have regained a foothold on Catalina Island and some also like to spend winters at Big Bear Lake, where actual bear encounters, while possible, are exceedingly rare.
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If you can’t tell your green-winged teal from your white-tailed kite, pick up one of the excellent field guides published by the Audubon Society (www.audubon.org), which are small enough to carry in a purse or daypack.
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And so, you might think, are animals in the desert. Wrong. The desert is far from deserted but most critters are too smart to hang out in the daytime heat. Roadrunners, those black-and-white mottled ground cuckoos with long tails and punk-style mohawks, can often be spotted on the side of the road. Other desert inhabitants include burrowing kit foxes, tree-climbing grey foxes, jackrabbits, kangaroo rats and a variety of snakes, lizards and spiders. Desert bighorn sheep and myriad birds flock to watering holes in palm oases.
Plants
You’ve seen them on film, you’ve seen them on TV. Those swaying palm trees with trunks as slender as a giraffe’s neck that are so evocative of Southern California. Well, those guys are like most locals: they’re not really from here. In fact, the only native SoCal palm tree is the fan palm, found naturally in such desert oases as the Indian Canyons of Palm Springs.
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Tree-huggers will thrill for Oaks of California by Bruce Pavlik et al (1991), which details the history and ecology of California’s 20 indigenous species of oak, with gorgeous photographs and excellent locator maps.
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Oak trees are a different story. California has 20 native species of oak. Along the coast look for live, or evergreen,