The Bay Warms and the Oysters Oblige

The sun has arrived with the quiet confidence of someone who knows exactly how long they've been missed. Sixty-eight degrees by Thursday — a number that would barely register in Sacramento but here on the North Coast constitutes a formal invitation to abandon all indoor plans. The fog, sensing it has lost the room, will attempt a single appearance Monday night before retreating entirely.

Meanwhile, the Pacific is running a rather spectacular production of its own. Gray whale mothers are steering their calves so close to shore one might offer directions. The negative tides this weekend will peel back the ocean's hem to reveal tide pools that have been rehearsing their colors all winter. On the Bald Hills, twelve California condors are circling with the wingspan and general attitude of minor deities. A Black-and-white Warbler continues its residency at the Arcata Marsh, three thousand miles from where it ought to be, apparently unbothered by geography.

The week ahead is not short on reasons to step outside.

A Black-and-white Warbler has taken up residence at the Brackish Pond — an eastern species with no obvious business being here, which is precisely what makes Saturday's 8:30 AM marsh walk worth the early alarm. Volunteer-led, free, and currently offering the rarest bird in the county as a warm-up act. Lady Humboldt would not dawdle.

Twelve California condors were counted near Orick this week, with additional groups spotted at Dolason Prairie and along the Lyons Ranch Trail in the Bald Hills. A species reduced to twenty-two wild individuals forty years ago now fields enough representatives in a single county to make a jury pool look thin. They are not subtle birds. Nine-foot wingspans tend to settle arguments about what, exactly, just passed overhead. Meanwhile, at lower elevations, the first western wake robin have unfurled their three-petaled declarations, and the fairy slipper orchids — which Lady Humboldt maintains are showing off — have appeared right on schedule along the redwood trails.

In March 1860, a late-winter storm of magnificent ambition flooded every river in the county, destroyed what passed for trails, and severed Humboldt's settlements from one another — and from the rest of California — for weeks. The railroad would not arrive for another fifty-four years. Lady Humboldt notes that modern residents who lose internet for an afternoon might consider this useful perspective on the meaning of "isolated."

Brett McFarland brings his Freedom Riders to the Eureka Theater on Saturday at 6 PM, and the pairing feels almost too correct — outlaw country belongs in a restored theater the way whiskey belongs in a proper glass. The songs carry the particular weight of someone who has lived in the places he sings about. Lady Humboldt recommends arriving with no expectations except honesty.

The new moon has made the nights uncommonly dark this week, and the redwoods have taken full advantage. One notices, walking a familiar trail at dusk, that the forest sounds different without moonlight — closer, somehow, and less interested in being observed. The trees keep their own hours.

Until next week,
Lady Humboldt