(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Dawn Chorus: Offline, On Tomales Bay [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-09-24 It’s ever harder to disconnect these days, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying. It doesn’t take a trip of hours (or days) to remote wilderness to do so. Weak cell service is enough to do the trick. A nice rocky outcrop… Three decades married to my favorite engineer was celebrated by a midweek trip to Marshall, a (very) small town on Tomales Bay, about an hour north of San Francisco. It was an excellent opportunity to unplug, not only because of weak cell service but also the fact that Nicks Cove (where we stayed) does not offer Wi-Fi. … with more than just rocks It was bliss Three days without seeing TFG; I have pretty much stopped reading about him but it’s hard to avoid a photo or headline on the front page here or anywhere. What a waste of bandwidth. No connection = no problem! This young Herring Gull’s half-consumed corpse of a very-dead fish is still less disgusting to me than most of today’s GOP. It was great to be oblivious to the outrage du jour. No MTG or Gym Jordan, no photos of creepy Gaetz, and perfect timing to miss the beginning of the hysteria over Boebert. No chest-thumping Angry Children’s Caucus (thank you Charlie Pierce for the perfect name) nor kangaroo court hearings. It wasn’t possible to avoid thinking about other problems of course. It just spared me from wasting bandwidth on distractions. When the world feels kind of upside down, it feels good to get away and refocus. When I travel with hubby the focus is on relaxing. For him, that includes sleeping late; for me it means early morning walks while he slumbers. Marshall is a great location for a walk. Looking across the bay towards Point Reyes and Heart’s Desire Beach. Tomales Bay is situated on the San Andreas Fault. The west side of the bay is Point Reyes, which is slowly sliding north. In a few million years, LA’s going to be across the water from Marshall so I’m glad that I’m here now to enjoy this view. Belted Kingfisher surveys the scene from the rock, While Great Blue Heron fishes during high tide. The bay is fairly shallow — great for kayaking and oyster farming. There are extensive mudflats in some spots and wonderful wetlands elsewhere. The water’s edge in Marshall is a bit more rocky with more limited mudflats. Still, shorebird migration is underway so there were birds to see. Black Turnstones were among the shorebirds on my walk. A handful of them flew in almost at my feet. Walking that shore brought home one of the cares that I couldn’t leave behind — climate change. A fairly small rise in sea level would inundate those mudflats. An important stop for migrating and wintering birds would be lost. Because the terrain rises so steeply around much of the bay, it’s not likely that the mudflats and marshlands would be replaced by land behind the current waterfront. When it’s gone, it’s gone. Along the Tomales Bay Trail . In addition to my morning walks, I had a nice afternoon hike on the Tomales Bay Trail just north of Point Reyes Station. The trail takes you to one of many conservation success stories in the area, the Giacomini Wetlands. A pair of juvenile Black-crowned Night Herons in that pond along the trail About 15 years ago, the Park Service added this property — a former dairy — to Point Reyes National Seahore. Land that had been sealed off from the bay and used as pasture for decades was restored by breaching dikes and allowing tidal waters to flow back into the former wetlands. Removing the cattle herds improved water quality in the bay dramatically. Bird diversity and numbers increased significantly. Black Phoebe along the trail right behind it is the former pasture that has been returned to tidal marsh I’m a few years away from retirement, counting down the months. For a very long time, my notions of retirement included a fair amount of bucket-list travel — Africa, Antarctica, Japan and especially Galapagos. (I’ve long felt that as Mecca is to Muslims, Jerusalem is the Jews or Rome is to Catholics, Galapagos is to those who put their faith in science and reason.) As we become aware of the outsized impact of air travel on the climate, it is hard to justify making those journeys. I will still do some travel, but it won’t be exotic sightseeing. I will likely travel with Earthwatch or do other trips where I can help out on research or service projects. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/24/2194806/-Dawn-Chorus-Offline-On-Tomales-Bay Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/