Bodega Bay, CA

This is a large bay with a breakwater and a narrow channel which leads to the marina and small craft harbour.  The whole area is a national marine park and bird sanctuary, home to gigantic White Pelicans, American Coots, Long Billed Curlews and many different species of Heron and birds of prey.  We were sheltered here from a few stormy days, giving amazing cloud formations, like this enormous thunder head that Greg captured.
Here you can see the outer bay and the narrow channel through the flats. This photo is taken from the Bodega Head trail which takes you high into the hills and across the sand dunes.  The beach in the distance is Doran beach which has interesting wetlands close by. The town of Bodega bay is where Alfred Hitchcock filmed 'The Birds" and we were lucky enough to meet Joe who lived in the bay and drove us to the nearby town to see the chapel and school-house featured in the movie.  We are always grateful to local residents like Joe who befriend us and drive us around to provision and sight-see!
The bodega head trail provides incredible cliff views and vistas of colorful ice plants creating a picture postcard view.  Along the trail we saw plenty of deer and 2 large skunk, as well as many different species of birds.  The trail took you to the very top of this hill and back down the other side to the sand dunes.
The golden grasses of the dunes shimmered in the low afternoon sun and were simply beautiful to walk through.  Here we spotted the remains of a kill where the turkey vultures had cleaned up after a cougar.
The dunes here are covered in chest-height golden grasses and really are as beautiful as this photo shows.  This  part of  the Bodega Head trial is a wild vastness of  panoramic views.
This shows the hills in the background which we descended to complete the circular trail of around 8km.  This is one of the most beautiful trials we have walked on the Pacific coast with the contrast of high cliff views of the coastline down to the vast sand flats.

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