11/12/2023 0 Comments Long tailed weasel![]() ![]() I’ve heard of sea otters being seen in the harbor, though it’s a rare sight. Within Pillar Point Harbor, one can find well over a dozen species of birds, harbor seals, and shouty sea lions. It’s worth a visit, however, no matter if you get there on wheels or on foot. The wide, mostly flat paths are shared politely by bicyclists, joggers, walkers, roller skaters, and easily distracted nature photographers.ĭue to the closure of the pedestrian bridge at Mirada Road at the northern end of the trail, there’s not uninterrupted Coastal Trail access to Pillar Point Harbor without a detour that takes you to the shoulder of Highway 1, then up past Surfer’s Beach. There are restrooms and parking at several points along the trail. The intrepid wanderer is rewarded with unpaved side paths, detours, cul-de-sac trails out onto the bluffs, and paths down to various beaches. The paved portion of the Coastal Trail stretches approximately 3.5 miles from Mirada Road at the north, to Poplar Street at the south, with a further unpaved section continuing down into the Wavecrest Open Space. Raptors perch on trees and posts, and small birds, mice, and brush rabbits rustle around in the shrubbery. The colors and textures of native plants that line the dunes and the Coastal Trail have year-round visual interest, and the air smells of sea salt and sagebrush. In addition to being a fine habitat for small mammals, the California Coastal Trail is a delight for human senses. I grew up in California, but before visiting Half Moon Bay my experiences with sand dunes had been mostly ice plant monoculture. The sand dunes along portions of the California Coastal Trail have been restored to a mostly native state, which visitors can see in places like the Nature Trail at Francis Beach. State Park staff and volunteers have been actively removing non-native plants and restoring habitat for over 25 years, using native plants grown from seed. Thanks to environmental restoration at Half Moon Bay State Beach and other local areas, there is plenty of habitat for long-tailed weasels and other native animals. “In addition, they don’t do as well as some other carnivores (like raccoons or coyotes) in urban and fragmented landscapes, so if you’re hiking in highly modified areas (in or around cities) you’re probably less likely to see them.” Dune plants at Half Moon Bay State Beach. ![]() “They’re small, fast, and tend to prefer habitat with lots of cover, so my best guess would be that they’re just less conspicuous than more commonly seen mammals,” Rossman wrote back. (I first found out about long-tailed weasels from her Instagram images of an encounter with a curious long-tailed weasel.) I wanted to know why encounters were relatively rare, so I emailed Zoë Rossman, an urban carnivore ecologist at the University of New Mexico and wildlife photographer. I’ve read accounts of photographers waiting years to see one. Long-tailed weasels are not seen often, though according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature they’re not rare or threatened and their range extends through most of California. A long-tailed weasel carrying its prey on the California Coastal Trail in Half Moon Bay. Elusive, fierce carnivores, they’re only about 12 inches long (with an additional 3-6 inches of tail) but will attack prey larger than themselves, and require more than a quarter of their body weight in food every day. ![]() ![]() To my surprise, the creature that appeared in my camera’s viewfinder to retrieve its snack was a long-tailed weasel ( Mustela frenata). Something dropped a rodent a few feet in front of me and scampered away, and I raised my camera and waited quietly to see whose lunch I had interrupted. While poking around a Half Moon Bay sand dune trail recently in search of the perfect landscape photograph, I heard a rustling in the bushes. ![]()
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