There are more sea lions along the coast of 17 Mile Drive than you can shake a stick at. The rocks just offshore are covered in them and the water surrounding the rocks is also pretty full. One thing I hadn’t seen before was just how much the sea lions seemed to enjoy leaping from the water. I have no idea whether they do this for fun or it is practice for something more important – avoiding sharks perhaps? Either way, it was pretty neat.
Unfortunately, they don’t give you a warning about where and when they are going to jump. Consequently, getting a shot was tricky. I got plenty where they were in the frame somewhere but not when I had focus. Consequently, they are a blurry shape off to one side. However, a few times I was pointing in the right direction and managed to catch them while airborne. In the best traditions of fishermen’s tales, the ones I didn’t get were far more dramatic with them further out of the water. You will just have to take my word for it unless you want to go there yourself to see.
I figured a bit of animation was probably worthwhile for some of these too so here is a GIF of one of the leaps.
My evening outside in Nevada with Paul and Chris included some down time while we waited to see what would happen next. While we were hanging around, we spotted a bat fluttering around. Needless to say, we had not come prepared for night wildlife photography. However, I had the ISO ramped up and a long lens in my hands so, while the shutter speeds might have been a bit low, I figured I would have a go. The little fella was not terribly close so these are cropped quite heavily and even then he is a bit small but a couple of the shots give you the distinctive outline of a bat, even if he was fluttering so fast that freezing him was not going to be on the cards.
