Tule Elk | Fotoeins Fotografie

Tule elk, Point Reyes, Point Reyes National Seashore, Marin County, San Francisco, California, USA, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: RTW10, one

10 years ago, I began an around-the-world (RTW) journey lasting 389 consecutive days, from 24 December 2011 to 15 January 2013 inclusive.

1 Jan 2012, day trip from San Francisco.

On a beautiful breezy New Year’s Day afternoon in the Point Reyes National Seashore, we saw a group of free-range tule elk roaming in meadows of high grass in the southlands near Drakes Beach. The tule elk had been hunted to near extinction at the end of the 19th-century, but a program to increase numbers in the early-1980s means the population has now grown to a few hundred in total. A elk bull with a missing horn appears in the image above. The male bull has lost a fight to the “alpha” bull surrounded by a group of females. I feel kinda bad for “stumpy”, alone and half in exile …

Alpha bull surrounded by females.

I made the photos above on 1 Jan 2012 with a Canon EOS450D (Rebel XSi). Both images were made at 300mm focal length (480mm full-frame equivalent), f/8, and ISO100; exposure times are 1/125- and 1/200-sec, respectively. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-lvw.

San Francisco: Point Reyes National Seashore

My friend, Bill, suggested a trip north to the Point Reyes National Seashore, about 30 miles (50 kilometres) northwest from San Francisco. A worry was the weather which in the middle of winter can get foggy and windy. The National Park Service description states:

(The Point Reyes Lighthouse …) still stands in its original location, having weathered over 135 years at what is considered to be the windiest, foggiest location on the US west coast.

Not entirely encouraging.

But on this New Year’s Day, the sun was out, with temperatures in the low- to mid-60s F (+15 to +18C), a good breeze, and no fog in sight, providing ideal conditions to hang out along the Pacific Coast.

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