Birch Aquarium and Scripps Pier in La Jolla: Kelp Forest, Penguins and Tide Pools

Perched high on a coastal bluff above La Jolla Shores, Birch Aquarium serves as the public exploration center for the world-celebrated Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. Unlike massive commercial theme parks that focus on stadium animal shows, San Diego's hillside science aquarium is intimate, manageable in two hours, and focused directly on Pacific marine research, ocean conservation, and panoramic coastal views. Combined with a sunset walk beneath the towering concrete pilings of Scripps Pier on the beach below, it makes an effortless half-day outing in northern La Jolla.

Inside Birch Aquarium: The Giant Kelp Forest and Little Blue Penguins

Passing through the entrance courtyard puts you into a semicircular building organized around marine habitats stretching from the cold waters of the Pacific Northwest down to the tropical reefs of Mexico and the Indo-Pacific:

• Hall of Fishes and the Giant Kelp Forest: The centerpiece of the interior gallery is a two-story, seventy-thousand-gallon Giant Kelp Forest tank filled with swaying golden kelp fronds harvested just offshore. Through the massive acrylic window, you can watch leopard sharks, giant black sea bass, moray eels, and bright orange garibaldi schooling through the currents, especially during scheduled afternoon diver feeding presentations.
• Beyster Family Little Blue Penguins: Located near the entrance terrace, this habitat houses a colony of the world's smallest penguins (native to southern Australia and New Zealand), complete with nesting burrows, sandy ledges, and an underwater viewing window where you can watch them dart through the water.
• Seadragons, Seahorses and Living Seas: Birch Aquarium is internationally recognized for its captive breeding programs for rare weedy and leafy seadragons, whose intricate leaf-like appendages camouflage them inside swaying sea grass tanks.
• Tide Pool Plaza Overlooking the Pacific: Stepping out the back doors onto the clifftop terrace reveals man-made living tide pools where docents introduce visitors to sea stars, anemones, and hermit crabs against an uninterrupted 180-degree backdrop of the Pacific Ocean, La Jolla Cove, and the Ellen Browning Scripps Memorial Pier directly below.

Walking Under Ellen Browning Scripps Memorial Pier

After visiting the aquarium on the upper bluff, drive or walk down La Jolla Shores Drive to the northern end of Kellogg Park beach to stand beneath the Ellen Browning Scripps Memorial Pier. Extending more than a thousand feet into the Pacific, this working oceanographic research pier is used by scientists to launch research boats, monitor ocean temperatures, and collect plankton data.

While the upper concrete deck of the pier is closed to the general public behind locked gates, walking underneath its symmetrical rows of towering concrete columns at low tide is one of the most landmark photography experiences in California. Twice each year, in early May and early August, photographers gather between the pilings at sunset for "Scrippshenge," when the setting sun aligns dead-center between the support columns.

How to Get There and Combine with Torrey Pines

Birch Aquarium sits on Expedition Way just off North Torrey Pines Road, five minutes south of Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve. MTS Bus Route 30 connects the aquarium directly with downtown La Jolla and the UC San Diego Blue Line Trolley at Nobel Drive or UCSD Central Campus stations.