Uncanny Valley

This area is a combination of the public Coronado Butterfly Preserve and the private Ellwood Main Monarch Butterfly Grove. The butterflies are in the latter (because that’s where the trees are), but the best way to get there is through the former. I’m not sure why they made a public preserve that isn’t a good habitat, but it’s a start. The private part is doing OK for now, as it’s still free and open, and it has the eucalyptus trees the caterpillars like to eat. I had heard the young ones only ate milkweed because its what has the toxins the butterflies need for defense, but I guess once they encountered the non-native and fragrant trees they decided they worked just as well.

So you may be thinking this is not that amazing. You’ll walk through the wood and see a few butterflies and they’re pretty and all. Then you see a few more. You look up and they are fluttering between the top branches like they are relaying messages between trees. That’s when you see a huge clump of animals huddled together for warmth. They look like dead leaves at first, but then you realise, those are all butterflies. You look around and see more and more: They’re everywhere. When you stop moving, you can actually hear them. It sounds like leaves rustling, but there is no wind. Truly a spectacle. I tried to get audio of the flapping, but it was to soft to record. I did get some other animals near the marshy bit.

You have to go in the winter, and December through February is best. It was a bit chilly when I went, but the critters didn’t seem to mind. A neat thing about their huge migration is not that they are one of the few insect species to migrate, but that each butterfly only makes it part way. They only live a few weeks from egg to adult, and so a caterpillar that hatches in winter never sees the summer home. How then, do the butterflies keep coming back to the same spot every year when noone alive remembers being there? That is indeed the mystery.

After the 1989 Loma-Prieta earthquake, a pod of California Sea Lions (Zalophus californianus) decided to move to K-dock, right next to the tour trap that is Pier 39. After several attempts to encourage the pod to move on failed, they were allowed to stay and became something of a tourist attraction. In the decade and a half since, the population has grown, feeding off the herring and other animals in the Bay. Occasionally, related species like harbor seals (Phoca vitulina)and Steller Sea Lions (Eumetopias jubatus) can be seen on the floating docks as well.

The animals coexist well at the busy pier. Since they have been given K-dock as their own space, humans have relatively undisturbed access off the rest of the nearby docks. The sea lions are also nonplussed by the noisy crowds of tourists a few meters away on the main pier. Course if I weighed up to 450 kilograms and could deliver a nasty bite if need be, I wouldn’t be too bothered by the humans either.

A bit of care is given from the Marine Mammal Center (MMC), which has an education office on the pier. They take care of any sick or injured Sea Lions (or other related mammals) and hose down the docks every week to keep the smell down.

Here’s a sound clip of the Sea Lions. If you need more you can check out the webcam.

A bit of quirky San Francisco. Or rather, a quirky San Franciscan named David Johnson. He can usually be found in the Wharf, behind a poorly-constructed ‘bush.’ When a muggle walks by, he will appear and shout, startling the muggle. This despite an inevitably large crowd gathered to watch people get scared. Which I think is even more funny. Even funnier is that some people get scared repeatedly, despite the Bushman always being in pretty much the same place.

Apparently some people think that someone shouting “ooga booga” is criminal and the Bushman has been given hundreds of tickets and been in court a number of times. I think this is retarded, in that sort of way that mentally-handicapped people would call retarded. Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks the Bushman is not a criminal, and many of the citations have been dismissed and he is still there performing almost every day, after about 25 years. Apparently though the Bushman employs a bodyguard in case there is an altercation. He should be the only one on that side of the street (most voyeurs are across the street to not interfere with the show).

I also hear rumours of an ‘anti-Bushman’ who is an imitator who stole the real Bushman’s bit. I don’t have any substantiation for this though.

Here is a sound clip of a typical encounter.

I live in San Francisco, so while I know there has been much hubbub about the documentary film The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill in the city, I am not sure how much of this has percolated to the ‘verse outside the Bay Area. The story is about this homeless guy who befriends a company of wild Cherry-Headed Conures (Aratinga erythrogenys) in San Francisco. Company is the term for a flock of parrots in the same way as it would be a bevy of beauties or smack of jellyfish.

I haven’t seen this film, but I know a lot of people are surprised that parrots can live in the temperate parts of the U.S., especially ones that originated as pets. In fact, there was a species of parrot native to the Northeastern U.S. that went extinct, the Carolina Parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis). The niche is now filled by the non-native Quaker Parrot (Myiopsitta monachus) in much of the region from Chicago to Manhattan. The Quaker Parrot is so common now out East that power companies are capturing and killing them because of the nests being built on power lines.

Ok, so back from that tangent. This is one of two companies of parrots in San Francisco, but the one with the most information on them (and the most famous). This particular company ranges over the Northeastern portion of the city, from the Presidio to Ferry Plaza to the Western Addition, waxing and waning with the seasons and the food supplies. The birds can be found pretty reliably at dusk as they roost for the night in Ferry Park. I found them in a eucalyptus tree in the corner of the park near a bridge over Davis street. They aren’t always roosting in this tree, but typically are somewhere nearby. The information in the table below is from where I found them roosting.

The animals are pretty raucous. The bells from the Ferry Building seemed to make them more so. Here is a clip.

I had heard a little here and there about this place for a while, and when I got a free ticket for the holiday lights and the rest of the park, I decided to finally rive way down to Gilroy, the garlic capital, and Bonfante Gardens. I had seen a few pictures of trees with several trunks, or in arches and loops and other strange things. These are still here, but they seem to be ever dwindling portion of the park, sadly.

It seems this place suffers from the shadow of Disney, in that anything in California must eventually become an amusement park. But unlike Knott’s Berry Farm, this one specializes in rides for small children. The scariest ride was a pirate-ship-styled one in the shape of a banana. There was a maze that was ok, and I really did like the lights and trees, but between the almost $30 admission fee for a single adult, and the fact that we were the oldest people there without a small child, it was not really worth it. I’m not even sure I would go if I even had kids, as the prices were trying to hard to compete with Disney even though the rides weren’t that special. However, many families in a much higher tax bracket seemed to disagree with me, though it was never so crowded I had to wait longer than 5 minutes for a ride.

I wish I could see a park of the circus trees by themselves. Even if the amusement park stuff were up to snuff, it still wouldn’t be worth it to go here for the trees alone. That kinda depresses me.

Are people still scared of snakes? I remember back in the day people would be all anti-snake but nowadays I feel like most people think they are pretty cool. I always thought they were cool, but that’s perhaps not surprising.

So this place, with the largest number of species of live rattlers in the world, along with other snakes, lizards, and the occasional hissing cockroach, is pretty cool. Atleast if you’re not Indiana Jones. Though admission does include a certificate of bravery for you Indy, you wimp. In addition to the impressive collection of animals, there are displays of tchotchkes are required by New Mexico state law, including a collection of snake-related beer bottles. There is a video playing if you choose to watch.

The gift shop is of the standard Old Town type. The main attraction is the museum. All in all, a nice place though, but I didn’t get to spend much time here. The director seemed disappointed that I didn’t stay that long, so if you go stay an extra minute just for me.

Note that flash photography is forbidden. So is tapping on the glass. No animals like when you tap on the glass. Stop doing it.

This is a memorial to departed circus and carnival workers located in Olivet Memorial Park. It is in section J, lot 2A, which is marked, but maps are available in the office. When I went to the office to get directions, I was worried about seeming like some morbid freak, but the person I spoke too did not seem to mind that I was here as a tourist, even when i mentioned also looking for the Marian apparitions that were also here.

Not much to do here but look at the brightly-colored memorial and feel disappointed that the adjacent graves don’t say what profession anyone was.

It’s like a no-kill shelter for abused, abandoned, or otherwise rescued farm animals. The farm doesn’t just try to rescue every animal that was supposed to be dinner (though they’ll take anything they have room for), they try to give priority to the cases that even factory farmers would think were pretty cruel. The rehabilitated animals are very cute despite any mutilations or injuries, and most are pretty friendly. I liked the turkeys and chickens the best, but maybe that’s because they liked me the best. The pot-bellied pigs were also sweet.

Despite the cuteness trips here are bittersweet. If you’re not vegan, you will (or should) be feeling guilty, and if you are vegan, you’ll probably feel bad for how these animals were treated. Either way you’ll probably see a few things that will change your concepts on how animals are raised for food (why are the chickens missing beaks?).

I would bring children here. But then I’m vegan. I don’t think it’s right to proselytize, but I feel if you’re going to go to a farm, this is perhaps more honest. You’d probably have to gloss over some questions though.

Laguna Creek Trail is a private, one-lane, unpaved road. Four our tour, we parked on Cherry Glen Road where it bends by the island, and hay-rid up. Note that the island is the second right-angle turn in Cherry Glen Road from I-80.

This is a unique dinner theatre performed on horseback in Old Town Chicago. Actually, I attended a matinée which was without a meal, although chips were available for purchase. The audience was light, especially considering the holiday weekend. It was mostly children, and they were RAPT, even during the slow parts. I’ve never heard such quiet children in the U.S.. If your kids are being bonkers, take them here and get some quiet nd see a fun show.

There are different shows throughout the season, and the one we saw was the King Arthur one. The story was a bit light but the horsemanship was excellent. There were many tricks like the rider swinging under the horse and back up to the other side, and a rider standing astride two horses jumping over obstacles. Other less showy tricks were more like making the horses walk sideways, and many people don’t know how difficult that is.

The show was one hour, and for the dinner it is 1½ hours. I suppose that the extra 30 minutes is for the meal and the shows are the same. Afterwards you can meet the performers and pet the horses. The seating is nice and spacious, and the theatre lacked any strong manure smell you may have been anticipating. All in all well worth the money, even if it did not meet my very high expectations.

This is a hospital for sick and injured birds in Old Delhi. Indian is not a rich country, despite it being a rising star in the global economy. So the fact that there are people caring for birds when there is so much human poverty is pretty amazing. It also means that inside is not for the faint of heart. I saw some birds that looked at me upside down, because their necks were almost completely broken. Many birds were missing feathers, beaks, feet, it really was sad. I had to give them a big donation.

The hospital is on the upper floors of a building behind the Sri Digambar Jain Lal Mandir temple. Since the temple is Jainist, that means any and all leather products must be checked before entry. This was easy for me, because I’m vegan, but I still had to take off my shoes as a sign of respect.

Inside the temple is also pretty interesting. There is this whole faux-cave thing that is super air conditioned and very pleasant. Even if you aren’t dying from the heat it is worth it to relax a bit after seeing the sick birds.