Week 17 1/7: Point Loma Native Plant Garden and upper Famosa Slough

Tucked away in the backstreets of OB / Point Loma

So our journey continues, a bit more spontaneous, a bit more here, there and everywhere.  It is a lovely afternoon in June cooler now than a few months ago, as the desert heat sucks in the coastal breeze.  It is a welcome return to something approximating "normal" weather patterns.  The Point Loma Native Plant reserve is a sort of Botanical garden run by a host of different agencies (though clearly the city is involved) showcasing the beauty of native plants, which require little watering and are otherwise ecologically sound.  If we had any land to scape we'd be tempted to try native gardening ourselves, alas we live in an apartment surrounded by hardscape.  Still once established native plants are beautiful and low maintenance.

Bladderpod

Live oak?

There's  a series of very short looping trails that cover the myriad of lowland microclimates in the city, from sunny well drained hillsides, to the wetter canyon bottoms to the edges of the salt marshes (don't hate the playa).  It's all kind of neat and I learned the names of much of what we had been staring at on our walk up the river over the past months.  Much of what grows here is found nowhere else.  Our place is a very small, fragile and unique piece of the planet indeed.

Poppy!

All in all we spent maybe 30 minutes checking out this neat little piece of the San Diego River Park system before moving on to the more well known Famosa Sloth on the other side of Nimitz blvd.

They call it Famosa because it's Famous.  Haven't you heard?

Egret striking a pose

A little oasis of almost natural wetlands surrounded by Point Loma / Ocean beach / Sports Arena sprawl, that boasts a few trails that make you almost forget the bustling city around you.

Tidal wetlands keep the river cleaner.

Lots of waterfowl

I've probably never seen so many Great Blue Herons and Egrets in one place.  They are everywhere here and seem almost to be congregating.  I could imagine living in one of the apartment complexes that border here and wandering about meditatively at sunrise and thinking I had some inner pearl of wisdom.  I'm not feeling particularly wise today, but it's nice to see this little offshoot of the San Diego River.  Apparently there is a trail that goes to where the Sloth outflows into the river, but I'd imagine crossing interstate 8 is a bit of a doozy (though on a nice summer weekend the, westbound lanes are usually a parking lot so no trouble there).

life in the water.

On the trail

We wander the trail up the west side of the Lagoon and see a few planes from the airport fly overhead as we linger in some of the more desirable locales.   This is the takeoff path after all.

Lots of airplanes overhead

This bird looked like it was walking on water.

The view from the back of the slough

A tree tunnel

The trail does not actually fully circumnavigate the slough.  We ended up going though an apartment complex instead (not sure if we were supposed to do that, but nobody was shouting profanities).  What I did notices was the contrast between the native vegetation along the trail and the lush / water hogging landscaping of the apartment complexes.  We clearly have more to learn if we wish to be a sustainable society here.

Reeds

The nastiest porta-potty I have seen in a long time

That's all!