Back in 2020, I posted photos of a long two-sided mural depicting sea life. The artwork was painted many years ago inside a pedestrian tunnel that passes under California State Route 75 at Silver Strand State Beach.
Today I went down to the Silver Strand for a walk and I noticed a new mural had been painted in 2021 at the west end of the same tunnel!
The mural presents images of boats, beach, ocean and birds. Both sides of the tunnel entrance were painted by Imperial Beach artist Esmeralda Robles.
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In 2022, the University Heights Historical Society placed a historical marker at the intersection of Park Boulevard and Adams Avenue. The sign stands near the remains of the entrance to the long-vanished Harvey Bentley’s Ostrich Farm!
The City of San Diego describes Historical Landmark No. 346 as: Mission Cliff Gardens Cobblestone Wall and Related Features.
One can see similar stone posts a couple blocks to the east at Trolley Barn Park. Cobblestones structures (and images of ostriches) are frequently seen throughout University Heights!
The sign explains:
This was once the entrance to Harvey Bentley’s Ostrich Farm, established in 1904. Nearby are the remains of a waiting station and drinking fountain for the #11 streetcar that brought scores of visitors from downtown to University Heights to see the ostriches as well as Mission Cliff Gardens and William Hilton’s Silk Mill. The streetcar was part of the 165-mile San Diego Electric Railway network, established in 1892 by visionary entrepreneur John D. Spreckels.
Here are two public domain images of the ostrich farm…
Just for fun, I photographed an ostrich painted at Yipao Coffee, a short distance south on Park Boulevard…
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
A flock of wild birds has descended on Garnet Avenue’s trashcans in Pacific Beach!
The colorful artwork, created by professional and student artists, allows those walking down the sidewalk to explore PB’s Wild Side!
My visit to Pacific Beach yesterday happened to involve a leisurely walk down Garnet Avenue. I found eight different birds on trashcans. If there are more of these plaques out there, I didn’t see them.
The birds that are depicted can all be spotted in the wild here in San Diego.
You can learn more about this project of beautifulPB (who’ve also provided a mural map of Pacific Beach) at this website!
Common Loon by Hilary Dufour.Ridgway’s Rail by Makena Seiler.Belding’s Savannah Sparrow by Kyla Yu-Swanson.Brown Pelican by Makena Seiler.Double-crested Cormorant by Makena Seiler.Least Tern by Makena Seiler.Great Blue Heron and Anna’s Hummingbird by Hilary Dufour.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Extraordinary murals depicting native wildlife, birds, flowers and plants welcome people who enter a system of trails in and around San Elijo Lagoon north of Solana Beach.
Heading up Highway 101, you might see an outdoor installation with the words Harbaugh Seaside Trails. That’s the donor plaza where you’ll find these mosaics. If the beautiful ceramic artwork appears familiar, perhaps that’s because local artist Betsy Schulz created them. You might have seen her similar work elsewhere around San Diego.
Harbaugh Seaside Trails is a 3-acre coastal overlook between Solana Beach and Cardiff-by-the-Sea. Should you feel in an adventurous mood, you can walk from this scenic area down an easy trail that passes under the railroad tracks.
On the other side of the tracks is the San Elijo Lagoon State Marine Conservation Area, where you’ll discover a large wetland containing more natural beauty and wildlife. (I’ll be blogging about this shortly.)
You’d love to see these murals in person . . . and feel the fresh breeze, and watch birds moving down near the water, and simply experience this beautiful place.
Why not do it today?
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
At Cardiff State Beach, in San Diego’s North County, restored coastal dunes are roped off, protecting fragile habitat from human feet.
Signs posted on the perimeter explain the “constructed dunes” and Our Living Shoreline.
One sign explains that coastal dunes provide a natural buffer against waves, tides and storms in winter.
Made resilient with native vegetation, the dunes provide important wildlife habitat and protect San Elijo Lagoon from flooding.
The roped dunes at Cardiff State Beach constitute a snowy plover and least tern preserve. These birds have decreasing populations, largely due to development, recreation and other human activity. The birds nest in vulnerable bowl-like depressions in the sand.
A second Our Living Shoreline sign concerns native coastal scrub and dune plants. Among these are sand-verbena, beach evening-primrose and woolly-heads.
The plants provide cover and food for native and migrating birds.
This colorful information sign, near the entrance to South Cardiff State Beach, concerns California’s kelp forests.
The underwater “Hidden Forest, Rich with Life” can be viewed from the shoreline as floating brown-green patches of seaweed.
The kelp plants hold to the ocean floor and stretch up 100 feet or more. They support an unseen world teeming with life, including diverse fish, marine mammals, sea slugs, sea stars, sea anemones and spiny sea urchins.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Pelicans made of sand live inside the Coronado Community Center!
This extraordinary art is found on a wall near the community center’s front desk. The bas-relief sandcast sculpture of pelicans taking flight was created by artist Charles R. Faust, whose incredible work can be seen all around San Diego.
A short biography of Charles Faust is on a nearby plaque. Not only did he cast many beautiful, highly detailed sand sculptures like this at his Ocean Beach studio, but he worked as Architectural Design Director for the Zoological Society of San Diego. He came up with the idea for open air animal enclosures at the San Diego Zoo and San Diego Wild Animal Park.
There are some great Faust panels inside the lobby of the “Mister A’s building” in Bankers Hill. They tell the history of San Diego. You can see those here.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
I love this public art at the 17th Street Lifeguard Tower in Del Mar!
A tile mural depicting pelicans in flight decorates a concrete bench in front of the lifeguard station. The artwork was created by Betsy Schulz, whose fantastic, very beautiful mosaics can be seen all over San Diego County. I’ve photographed many.
Poetic words beneath the mural provide a wish: May your joys be as deep as the ocean, your sorrows as light as its foam. -Anonymous
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
It’s easy to explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag. There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
The short, easy McCoy Trail at Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge is a fine place to sight birds. I found this out recently during my own quiet walk down the nature trail.
The McCoy Trail starts south of the Visitor Center on the north side of the Tijuana Slough, in Imperial Beach. I walked along the trail once before, back when I blogged about a guided nature walk that I enjoyed. But you don’t need a guide to appreciate the beauty of this protected wetland.
Spotting birds requires patience and searching eyes. There’s a lot of helicopter activity in the area from Naval Outlying Landing Field Imperial Beach, which might spook some birds.
If birds aren’t inside the lush green vegetation feeding or nesting, they’re out on the open water channels, usually as some distance from the trail. I found it best to sit on one of the McCoy Trail’s benches, relax, and let time and serendipity reveal the hidden life.
During this walk I saw several Snowy Egrets, a cormorant at a distance, and quick little birds flying shrub to shrub that I couldn’t identify. I also saw a brown pelican and great blue heron flying overhead.
Near the trail you’ll also observe prickly pear and cholla cacti, which might seem odd. The separation between wetland and very dry habitat can be sudden in our arid coastal region. It’s one reason for San Diego’s amazing biodiversity.
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Thank you for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often, so you might want to bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and check back from time to time.
You can explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Nature’s beauty between La Jolla Cove and Children’s Pool is stunning. Even on a gray Autumn day.
I walked along the ocean in La Jolla this morning and took photographs of rugged rocks, crashing waves, sea birds, and people quietly gazing toward the horizon.
Once in a great while I will experiment with my images and apply “artistic” filters using my graphics editor. I thought I’d try using the GIMP oilify filter for this batch of photographs.
Here they are…
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Thank you for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often, so you might want to bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and check back from time to time.
You can explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
A very special event was held today at the Sweetwater Marsh National Wildlife Refuge. National Wildlife Refuge Week was celebrated! And the public was freely invited!
I arrived around noontime and started down the refuge’s nature paths toward San Diego Bay.
At one station near a brackish wetland pond, a friendly ranger was inviting kids (and curious adults) to play Bird Bingo! How many wild birds could visitors spot? I saw a beautiful Snowy Egret.
At a second station, rangers were encouraging people to dip a net into the nearby water. Netted plankton was then observed under magnification!
The event was a fun opportunity to learn about the value of wildlife refuges, where animal and plant life–some of which is endangered–can thrive undisturbed. And where we humans can reconnect with nature, absorbing all that goodness that awaits us in wild places.
San Diego Bay National Wildlife Refuge consists of the Sweetwater Marsh and South San Diego Bay Units, preserving coastal salt marsh and intertidal mudflat habitat.What’s in here?
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Living Coast Discovery Center, SeaWorld San Diego, San Diego Zoo Safari Park, and the California Department of Fish & Wildlife are working together on a captive propagation program to rear the endangered light-footed Ridgway’s rail…
I checked out the Bird Bingo first.A Snowy Egret hunts for food in the pond.Now heading through the wildlife refuge toward the Plankton Netting activity. I see downtown San Diego in the distance.A curious kid was netting microscopic specimens.At the Sweetwater Marsh National Wildlife Refuge today, there was much to experience and learn!
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Cool San Diego Sights! 