If you’ve driven Highway 1 near San Simeon in the past few years, chances are you’ve noticed the extraordinary northern elephant seal colony at Piedras Blancas Beach.

Last spring, when I stopped in after a reporting trip to disaster-prone Big Sur, a docent told me that the very best time to see the seals is mid-January. This, she said, is when the beach is most crowded with the prehistoric looking pinnipeds, birthing and mating and generally carrying on.