Pinnacles: east side

Ok, after that respite, and some cute kitties, lol, I'll finish up the birding weekend.

My busy season at work has picked up as Reformation (observed) is this coming Sunday. Next week, All Saints Day... then an organ/hymn fest... Thanksgiving... then Advent, and before we know it... Christmas & New Years. Ah, Pentecost... I'll miss you and the monotonous season where nothing much happened and I had more free time. I hope to keep up a decent pace of posting - and surely you all noticed I posted a heck of a lot more in the last 2-3 weeks than I ever did before. I'm like the grasshopper, lol... no steady pace for me. It's all or nothing. But I'll try.

Anyway, back to the post.
In case you haven't seen it yet, my mom has a post on this too from last Wednesday.

On the way to the Pinnacles from Watsonville, we stopped at Hollister for a few minutes at a water reclamation site. Apparently there were some local waterfowl that people could possibly see. There just seemed to be plain old mallards, and we needed some lunch for the day, so we took off. Here's one of the shots of that area near Hollister. The sun was just rising and it was foggy, so this somehow was the result. It was pretty, but I don't remember it being just like this. I guess my eyes filtered better than the lens did.
We got to the Pinnacles way in advance of everyone else since they had also stopped in Pinoche Valley to pick someone else up. We spent quite some time around the visitor's center waiting on everyone. Saw plenty of birds there, but I'll save them for my next post.

The group finally showed up and decided to tool around a bit near the visitor's center.

I spotted a great little dragon fly. I don't think I can identify this one beyond some kinds of skimmer... although I'm not sure of that either. It blended in very well with it's surroundings. Although it perched still for a while, it was still quite difficult as through the lens, it was hard to find it.
Not far from the dragonfly, a bobcat just strolled by. I think there was a bird in an oak tree that it spotted, and it was hanging out below it at the base. Unfortunately a commotion began when it was spotted and the cat decided it wasn't going to get its prey then so it sauntered off. That was cool. I hadn't seen one in the wild before.
Once we finally got the group together again and on a decided plan of action, we hiked from the Peaks View parking lot to the ranger station up at Bear Gulch. This was some of the typical vegetation. Those ferns were great and in such an arid area I was surprised, not only to see them, but how large they were. It's almost as if the dinosaurs could have still been around and munching on them.
Here's another couple of trail pics. This was getting towards the end of the day as we were headed back to the car from the ranger station. These deer hopped up on the trail from the left side and spotted us and what appeared to be the mama was curious enough to look at us and take a few steps towards us. I was in THE perfect position for a great shot. I was probably 20 or so feet behind where my mom was and even though I didn't have my big lens on, I think my 60mm macro was the perfect one.This one I cropped a bit so the deer's faces were clearer. So common, yet still a thrill :) Oh, they're black-tailed deer too like the one at Rancho del Oso. Essentially mule deer as you can see by their big ears.