Bird Watching at Elkhorn Slough in Moss Landing (CA) with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Bird Watching at Elkhorn Slough in Moss Landing (CA) with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

After I chaperoned a field trip for my daughter’s Waldorf School to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, I wanted her to see ocean and migratory birds in their natural habitat.  We drove to Elkhorn Slough, a few miles north of Monterey across from Moss Landing to do this.

Elkhorn Slough is an estuary.  It is a body of water with an opening to the ocean with rivers and streams flowing into it.  The Reserves’ brochure said that Elkhorn Slough winds inland for seven miles and encompasses 2,500 acres of marsh and tidal flat.

The visitor’s brochure went on to state that nearly 90% of California’s estuaries have been destroyed.  An impressive number of wildlife finds homes in estuarine habitats.  The one at Elkhorn Slough is home to over 400 invertebrates (animals without a backbone), 80 species of fish, and more than 200 species of birds.  The visitor’s center staff said that if you included migratory birds, Elkhorn Slough hosts and is home to 267 species of birds that have been identified in its area.

The visitor’s brochure also stated that six rare, threatened, or endangered species use the Slough – peregrine falcons, Santa Cruz long-toed salamander, clapper rails, brown pelicans, least terns, and sea otters.

You can see the birds and other wildlife from eight different walking trails.  The day of our first visit, we started with the Overlook of Elkhorn Slough Channel Trail, which follows the main channel.  There are Native American burial sites visible on this trail, but you cannot visit them.

We had exchanged our driver’s licenses for binoculars at the visitor’s center and looked at tree branches and over the water for birds.  We saw white pelicans form a circle in the water and then dive for fish.  It was a cute bobbing show.  There were also black cormorants and bald eagles out in the water.  We walked about two miles and soaked up the sea breeze as well as the smell of dry leaves.

We bought a membership to the Elkhorn Slough Foundation to obtain free entry for a year.  There were seven more walking trails that we wanted to explore:

-Long Valley Loop Trail – Woodland Trail

-Coast Live Oak Trail – Native trees that are home to birds, mammals (warm-blooded animals whose females carry developing babies within them), and insects

-Parson’s Slough Overlook – Sand dune area with the opening to the Monterey Bay

-Eucalyptus Grove – Trees imported from Australia in the 1800s

-Old Elkhorn Dairy Site – Kids love playing in the abandoned barns here that are supplied with a few haystacks

-Marsh Restoration Project – Site of experimental studies in marsh biology and ecology

-Elkhorn Slough Overlook – Ancient river valley trail

I left the Elkhorn Slough happy that groups like our French-language and culture club, the Alliance Française, did monthly walks there to support the conservation efforts of the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve.  Elkhorn Slough also has picnic tables for families and groups who wish to make their visit an all-day outing.

I love exercise that involves bird watching and think Elkhorn Slough is great for this reason.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Ruth Paget Selfie

Hiking at Point Lobos outside Carmel (California) with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Hiking at Point Lobos outside Carmel (California) with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

My family liked hiking in Point Lobos just three miles south of Carmel, California, so when my daughter’s Waldorf School asked for chaperones for a geology field trip there I readily accepted.

Point Lobos juts out with jagged coves into the Pacific with waves crashing all around it.  Gnarled cypress tree forests create many photo opportunities.  The name “lobos” comes from Spanish for “sea wolves,” referring to the sea lions that Spanish explorers saw. 

Europeans first arrived in 1769 to this area where descendants of what is called the Ohlone tribe lived.  Whaling was practiced here and there was an abalone cannery in operation at one time, too.  The photographers Edward Weston (1886 – 1958) and Ansel Adams (1902 – 1984) both photographed Point Lobos for posterity.   Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 – 1894) is also said to have drawn his inspiration for Treasure Island from Point Lobos.

When our school group arrived, a reserve docent gave us a tour and talked about the two main rock types at Point Lobos: igneous Santa Lucia granite and sedimentary Carmelo Formation.

The Santa Lucia granite was formed below the earth’s surface, uplifted, exposed, and then worn down by waves and weather into diverse forms.  We walked along the beach and took pictures of all the jutting granite.  Granite is an igneous rock formed by the cooling and hardening of lava.  Santa Lucia granite is called intrusive, because it forms underground.

We walked through a meadow of poison oak (no touching allowed!) to view sedimentary Carmelo Formation rock.  Carmelo Formation is a sedimentary rock that is formed by mineral and/or organic deposits on rocks that form layers.  (I wondered if the organic deposits were bird feces called guano.)

These two types of rock formed different types of sand, which the reserve docent showed us.  Igneous Santa Lucia granite makes fine-grained sand that is deposited by waves.  Sedimentary Carmelo Formation rock makes “large pebble” sand that rolls around in storm surf.

Once our formal tour was over, we broke into two groups.  I took my group to see the whaling cabin.  The most interesting there was the whale jawbone on display.

I picked it up and lowered the jawbone over my head and said, “I don’t think I would go swimming with a whale.”  Some species of whale just eat plankton (microscopic plants) and krill (microscopic crustaceans), but other species eat fish, shrimp, squid, sea lions, walruses, seals, sharks, and sea birds.

Sea lions and their pups were on the beach where the whaling station was.

“Don’t go down there.  They might hurt you defending their children,” I said.

We all watched the sea lions play with their children and rest.  Even the rowdy students in the class were transfixed and quiet by the sea lions.

When we had to leave, I knew the students would be in an inquisitive state of mind to study mammals (warm-blooded animals whose female members carry babies inside of them till they are born) – the next unit at school.

My husband Laurent and I brought Florence back to Point Lobos to see whales surfacing and diving on their way from Alaska to Mexico.  The whole class went on a whale and dolphin watching boat trip as well.

Monterey County is very much an outdoor classroom.

Suggested reading: Moon Hiking Guides

By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Ruth Paget Selfie

Attending the Santa Rosalia Italian Festival in Monterey, Calfornia with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Attending the Santa Rosalia Italian Festival in Monterey, California with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

September 5, 2025 - Details below:

Santa Rosalia 2025 Details

Summertime means festivals on Fishermans’ Wharf in Monterey, California.  My favorite festivals when I lived in Monterey were the Turkish, Greek, and Italian ones.

My husband Laurent and I took our daughter Florence to all of them to get doner kebab, Greek desserts, and pasta.  Florence learned the words to many of Dean Martin’s songs and especially liked going to the Santa Rosalia or Italian Festival.

I had to move to Monterey with its large Sicilian community to participate in an Italian festival despite having traveled to Italy several times.

Monterey’s Santa Rosalia Festival commemorates this saint’s saving the Sicilian city of Palermo from the bubonic plague in 1624 when she appeared to a young Matteo Bonello.  She told him to go to her hermit’s cave and dig up her bones so he could scatter them in every corner of the city, which ended the plague.

In Palermo, they still parade Rosalia’s image to thank her for succor.  In Monterey, her image is paraded down Alvarado Street from the San Carlos Cathedral to the Wharf where a mass is said to bless the fishing fleet.

Before the procession arrives, there is plenty to do at the Santa Rosalia Festival.  Bocce ball players roll baseball-sized, leaden balls towards a ping-pong sized ball at the end of a lane as long as a bowling alley.  A player makes a good shot when his ball gets very close to the white ball.

A player makes an excellent shot if he (it is invariably a ‘he’ who plays) can get his ball to the white ball while knocking one of his opponent’s balls away from the white one.  There are no scorecards, but obviously a predetermined number of times you can roll your balls, because the players change ends of the lane a few times.

I just enjoyed listening to the aficionados cheer as I sipped Moretti dark beer.  (Italy’s northeastern corner was Austrian at one time and has a beer-drinking heritage.)

The food offerings at the Santa Rosalia Festival feature the foods of southern Italy.  I like penne puttanesca, which appears to be Roman.  Penne are short, hollow tubes cut at an angle that are good at catching sauce.  Puttanesca sauce gets it savor from capers, garlic, anchovies, olives, and tomatoes fried in olive oil and topped off with parsley and basil.

At our first of many Santa Rosalia Festivals, we ate and drank as the procession from San Carlos Cathedral paraded past our table in the sunshine.  A high school marching band did their steps double time, which garnered applause from the presto lovers in the audience.

Then came a phalanx of spit-polished 1970s convertibles crowned with two or three teenaged beauties, wearing white gowns with their hair up in buns that were topped off with diadems.  They played the part of beauty queen well, waving to the crowd with some of them blowing kisses.

Finally, the float with Santa Rosalia’s statue came down the Wharf.  Little girls wearing blue angel outfits, who were too shy to move, graced the float.

“That’s my granddaughter to the right of Santa Rosalia,” one of the ladies said to another one at our table.

“I made her costume,” she sweetly boasted.

“She’s adorable,” I said.

“I know! I know!  Thank you,” came grandma’s proud reply.

A boat float with little boys on it passed by signaling the end of the parade.

I loved being part of the pageantry and settled back to listen to more Dean Martin music and dance the chicken dance with Florence each time it was announced, so we could have some silly fun.

By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Ruth Paget Selfie

Condor Country - Monterey County (California) by Ruth Paget

Studying the Habitat of Monterey County (California) Condors with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

My daughter Florence went on a whale and dolphin watching boat trip with her Californian Waldorf School and had become a zealous nature lover.  To encourage this interest in nature, I took her to see the exhibit “Bringing the Condors Home” at the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History.

The exhibit room’s walls were decorated with aerial shots of what a condor can see at high altitudes.  A stuffed condor with outstretched wings easily held Florence and me within its six-foot span.

I knew condors made noise flying and told Florence, “The Native Americans call condors thunderbirds.”

We both were distressed when we learned that in 1985 there were only 22 condors left in existence.  The Ventana Wilderness Society was given the task of breeding and reintroducing the condors into the Big Sur Wilderness in 1997, because they had a track record of success with reintroducing the bald eagle to the same area.  In 2003, at the time of the exhibit, they had a baseline flock of 22 birds to manage.

The Ventana Wilderness Society uses video cameras and a bar code data entry system to monitor bird behavior according to the Terra Focus brochure that was at the exhibit.  Terra Focus, a Silicon Valley firm from Los Altos, provided the Condor Cam at the exhibit that showed how cameras work in condor habitats.

I looked through the Condor Cam and agreed with the Terra Focus brochure that “[r]esearchers, students, and the general public anywhere in the world can watch these animals without having to actually be in the field.”

I fully supported Florence’s school trips “in the field,” but thought it would be interesting for students to study condors and polar bears with this technology.  I wished the exhibit were not a temporary one.

Five years later after visiting this exhibit I went to what was then the Pinnacles National Monument before it became a national park as Monterey County’s Youth Services Librarian (MLIS, San José State University).  The Pinnacles area is a condor-release site in addition to Big Sur, California.

I was at the Pinnacles to participate in the 100^th anniversary of the region’s being declared a national monument along with Muir Woods and the Grand Canyon by President Teddy Roosevelt (1858 – 1919) in January 1908.

A ranger had dressed up as Teddy Roosevelt and greeted guests for the ceremony, which included a nice lunch.  I had helped the Pinnacles organize an essay contest about the park, which is home to bats, frogs, 400 species of bees, and rare chaparral vegetation.

I told the park rangers I was seated with how much my daughter and I liked going to Mount Lassen and brainstormed ideas with them on how to get classes and families to the Pinnacles for hiking trips.  The Pinnacles is a 30-mile wide volcanic area with craggy peaks, giving the park its name as the Pinnacles.

Before I left, the rangers took me to the bookstore and donated books to the library for children.  There were seventeen branches in the library system where I worked, and I ordered many copies of the books, because I knew they were scientifically accurate.  I absolutely loved it that the children of Monterey County had access to the Pinnacles through the Soledad entrance to the park.

Today the Pinnacles is America’s newest national park.  The condor count has gone up from 22 to 400.  They are still rare to see.  I think condor cams or films at the Visitor’s Center might give park visitors an idea of what condor life is like before they hike.  A condor habitat scavenger hunt sheet might be a good way to give children a condor souvenir from the park.

Park rangers offer hikes on the following themes for classes: geology, wildflowers, botany/vegetation, caves, bats, and condors and cultural history.  Campground facilities are available.

The Pinnacles field trip scheduling is very organized on their website and requires a 60-day advance registration.  They also give options for continuing the Pinnacles Experience on their website for service learning projects such as making environmental posters, organizing trash pick-up days, and sharing knowledge at park-organized events.

Learning about condors and how efforts to reintroduce species into the wild can succeed make Monterey County an interesting vacation destination.

By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Ruth Paget Selfie