A Red-tail hawk atop a light pole. Thought it was a Cooper's Hawk, was set right by the experts: "The brown bellyband with a clear upper breast are great field marks that a Coop will never show at any age."

Sometimes, toward dusk, hundreds, if not thousands, of crows gather in Santa Cruz and yell at each other from the treetops and rooftops overlooking the downtown strip between Center and Front Streets. Creepy. Glorious. Wear a hat.

The sea lions (and more rarely, the harbor seals) of the Monterey Bay find a noisy, barking, snoring perch in the timbers of the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf.