In the mid- Sierra, drive along Highway 89 from U.S. 50 near Lake Tahoe to the junction with Highway 88 in the middle of Hope Valley. This month and next, Hawk Hill in the Marin Headlands offers superb views of bald eagles , ospreys , peregrine falcons , and northern harriers along with 15 other raptor species. Now that summer crowds have retreated to their homes and offices, California beaches invite exploration. The gentle waves of summer have left wide deposits of sand near the shore, and the beaches are broader and flatter than they will be after winter's heavy waves. Look for tidepool creatures like the red-banded shrimp , mossy chiton , leather star , clingfish , anemones , and nudibranchs at rockier beaches along the coast.
Harbor seals have finished weaning their pups, so the breeding season begins anew.
November Find unparalleled winter bird watching at the Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge, in Imperial County. You can't get much closer to taking a safari in California than on the road between Lava Beds National Monument and the tiny city of Tulelake. To increase the chance of encounters with coyotes , bobcats , deer , pronghorn antelopes , mallards , egrets , coots , snow geese , white pelicans , caspian and Forster's terns , ride a bike. To escape the icy weather of Alaska and Northern Canada, tundra swans flock to California's Central Valley during the fall and winter. With their loud honk, tundra swans are seen and heard around the Eel River Delta just south of Eureka in the Klamath Basin NWR Complex, the Nature Conservancy's Cosumnes River Preserve, and Woodbridge Road Ecological Preserve near Stockton.