View Finder: Moran Lake

Every September, without fail, the summer tourists clear out, the sun turns golden and the fog that dampened July and August starts to recede. It's what Santa Cruz locals call the "real summer," and there has never been a better time to hop on your bike and cruise along the cliffs in search of a nice, quiet beach spot. 

One such location is the between 26th and 30th Avenue on East Cliff Drive. It's probably one of the most scenic beaches, where the water always seems to be a little bit greener than at any other beach. Across the road from the beach is Moran Lake, a lagoon with a scenic trail running around it.

The lake may not be the kind of lake you'd want to swim in, although it does have its charms. Moran Lake currently has a soupy, mossy, green slime on top, and if you look closely, you'll notice plastic cups and other trash in there. 

In the rainy season, you will see the lagoon and ocean meet each other thanks to the culvert under East Cliff Drive that drains into the Pacific Ocean. The lagoon is mostly fed by the rain coming off the land, but sometimes, the sea rises high enough to feed the lagoon as well. 

Since the creeks and rivers flowing into Monterey Bay drain over 6,000 square miles of land, it is startling to think of the amount of pollutants that get flushed into the bay.

If you take a walk around the lagoon, there is a good chance you will see mallards and great blue herons at any time of the year, as well as egrets, western gulls and black-crowned night herons. In the fall and into the spring, you'll be able to see migrating sandpipers, dunlins and dowitchers.