A Tern for the Better

 

Elegant Terns at Ocean Beach
(I wonder if that chocolate-brown gull is some kind of dark-morph Western gull.)

There were lots of brown pelicans lounging on the edge of Sutro Baths this morning, something I don't see very often. I was tempted to go down there, but it didn't really seem worth it without Sutro Sam. 

From the overwatch behind the Cliff House I was surprised to see yet another young pelican drifting south across the surf zone. It didn't appear to be injured, but evidently it could not fly. I kept my eye on it, and sure enough it was sucked over the falls by a wave and was eventually pushed in to the beach, almost as if it were body-surfing. Once it was ashore, it proceeded to trundle all the way up to the sea wall before finally turning back toward the ocean. Another onlooker had called the city's Animal Care & Control folks, but I left before they arrived.

The wind wasn't blowing too hard, so I took another ride out through Sunset Dunes and stopped when I heard the calls of a small flock of elegant terns near Pacheco Street. Instead of flying away when someone passed near them, they lifted off and circled back to their original spot, so I figured I'd take a chance and go down there, leaving my ebike up on the sea wall. The terns weren't bothered by my presence, and I was surprised toward the end when they circled through the air and landed even closer to me.

This is either a female or immature western bluebird at Golden Gate Heights Park. I was going to try to photograph a much more blue male nearby, but both birds were frightened away by an offleash dog.

Lounging in the Bison Paddock

Meditative Bison

Brown Pelicans at Sutro Baths

A Pelican's Adventure

I saw rain falling in the distance a few times this morning but didn't actually get rained on until I started to head home at about noon. I pulled a rain jacket out of my saddlebag, but it wasn't particularly cold out, so I left the rain pants in the bag.

The pelican seemed like it couldn't get far enough away from the ocean, but it was stymied by the sea wall. I wondered if it would climb the stairs to the esplanade, but it wasn't feeling sociable toward us humans.

After walking along the sea wall a ways, the pelican began walking back toward the beach.

Elegant Terns & Sanderlings

Terns in Flight

Beach Wrack Denizens

We don't often get a lot of bull kelp washed up on Ocean Beach. I was glad to know there's actually a kelp bed or two offshore (given their plight), although I do wonder if this bunch drifted down from up north somewhere.

Elegant Terns Facing the Wind

Young Elegant Terns

A Birdy Day at the Beach

Flock o' Terns

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Walkin' on the Wild Side

 

Coyote Near Hellman Hollow

I spotted the coyote walking up Middle Drive just as it turned into the brush toward Hellman Hollow. I stopped and got off my bike, dropped the kickstand, opened the trunk bag, and pulled out my camera to see if the coyote would show itself again. It soon did, and although I wasn't terribly close, it spotted me right off (darn that high-visibility bike jacket!). The coyote stared at me for a breath or two, then calmly turned back and crossed Middle Drive, heading south. I tried to find it again to no avail.

This morning's rain was perfectly timed. With a window slightly open, I enjoyed listening to it while I had breakfast and coffee and read the news online, and it stopped right about the time I was ready to head out for a walk.

I reminded myself to put the news of the day out of mind as I walked, and pay attention to my surroundings instead -- not just for safety's sake, but to spot anything interesting or beautiful. I also thought about a book I'm reading called Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death, by Nick Lane. I'm only a quarter of the way into it, but here's a couple of things I highlighted:

"We have taken [cells] apart, in centrifuges or with optical tweezers, read out the code that specifies their structures, deciphered the regulatory loops that lend an illusion of purpose, listed all their parts. And yet underneath it all, we are barely any closer to understanding what breathes life into these flicks of matter."

And, "What were the steps by which thin air was transformed into the substance of life, starlight into matter?"

It's really beautiful the way the author discusses the intricacies of the Krebs cycle or photosynthesis, then derives succinct and poetic musings such as the two above. I also like the historical stories about the ingenuity and doggedness of the people who incrementally win the knowledge that we later take for granted.

This Nuttall's woodpecker really liked to work upside-down.

As I was watching the Nuttall's, this hairy woodpecker flew onto the same tree.

Mallard Lake
(I saw more red-eared sliders than mallards.)

Also at Mallard Lake, a couple of 4-spot orb-weavers (Araneus quadratus) were busy repairing their rain-damaged snares.

Working her spinneret to produce spider silk.

The red-shouldered hawk, also at Mallard Lake, screeched its call numerous times, but took exception to being watched and soon flew away.

You can't rely on the camera meter to get the correct exposure in such challenging back-lit situations, but thankfully it's easy to dial in a stop or two of overexposure with the FZ80D.

It has its limits, though, and the camera doesn't always find a place to focus the lens, or it finds a place that is in front of or behind the actual subject. Nevertheless, I was surprised to get a good enough shot to ID the bird (in the Merlin app) as an orange-crowned warbler.

I hesitate to guess which dragonfly this is. I recently photographed one with more blue in it at the SF Botanical Garden. It's a big dragonfly, and I wanted to say blue-eyed darner, but it doesn't really seem to have blue eyes!

I imagine all the preparations for Hardly Strictly Bluegrass this weekend are causing coyotes (along with the rest of us) to alter their routes and routines. 

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Warbling Vireo

 

Today's Sunrise Cloudscape

The sky was so dark, gray and monotonous when I woke up that I decided to just lie in bed a while. What's the rush? I'm retired! Eventually the morning slowly began to brighten up, then suddenly transformed into this beautiful cloudscape. 

I photographed a warbling vireo yesterday, my first. The Merlin app has picked up their vocalizations a couple of times on Mt. Tam, but I never got a good look at one. This particular bird stopped on my neighbor's lilly pilly tree as it was passing through, and I happened to have my camera ready. I got one frame off before it flew away.

Warbling Vireo, Golden Gate Heights

Gruff-looking Scrub Jay in my neighbor's oak tree.

I've had deer antlers in my garden for many years without any critters ever taking an interest in them. It's just been in the last year or so that the neighborhood squirrels have been munching on them. I don't begrudge them for doing it (I leave in place the great majority of shed antlers I find in the wild), although the teeth marks do ruin the aesthetic value of the antlers. They are packed with minerals, though, so I can't fault squirrels like this female for taking advantage.

Pygmy nuthatches in a bird cage? No! A new bird feeder has shown up in the neighborhood. Only small birds can reach the seeds. Sorry, squirrels! The plate on the bottom keeps the seeds from falling to the ground where they'd attract rats and other animals, and there's a dome on top to keep the rain out. 

It's a good design for a bird feeder, but I preferred to photograph one of the nuthatches perched in a nearby tree.

The same house also has a hummingbird feeder, but this one is not rat-proof. I have trail-cam video of a rat hanging from our backyard hummingbird feeder. I'd been wondering why it emptied out every night.

Yellow Evening Primrose

On my walk this morning I looked up and saw birds splashing on the roof of a house next to a long set of stairs. When I climbed high enough up the stairs I was able to look back and see the white-crowned sparrows from above.

I noticed that the Chinese chestnut tree at North Lake had dropped lots of spiky fruit today, so I thought I'd check out the nuts to see if they are sweet, but the nuts hadn't really developed. They were flat and looked unappetizing, maybe because there isn't a second tree around for cross-pollination.

A pair of turkey vultures was soaring above Sutro Park late this morning. I second-guessed myself for a minute, thinking they might be hawks, because they weren't doing the tippy-wing thing very much.

The vulture seemed portentious when I spotted this poor cormorant writhing on the beach below the Cliff House. I'd never seen a dying bird in such apparent agony before.

I recorded some video of the cormorant, but be advised that it could be disturbing to watch.

I rode from Cliff House out to the southern end of Sunset Dunes Park and was surprised to see a dead buck deer on the beach at Sloat Boulevard. I wondered if it walked up from the south, or washed up after being carried by currents from the north. It's the first time I've ever seen a dead deer on Ocean Beach.

This is a phone snap of today's sunrise, shot shortly after the FZ80D image at the top of the post.

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Yardbirds

 

Red-legged Frogs, SF Botanical Garden

I was about to head down to the botanic garden when I spotted some bird action in my back yard. Something big flew into the neighbor's oak tree, and a mess of chickadees started going nuts, chattering at full volume. Three or four hummingbirds also began darting all over the place and chittering non-stop. The big bird finally showed itself as a crow, and a second one soon flew into the tree as well. The crows were being casual though, just hanging out on branches, and the upset little birds soon returned to their normal activities.

I recently bought some other tubular red-flowered plants, but the hummingbirds seem to be ignoring them in favor of this old-timer.

I got nice views of the chestnut-backed chickadees when they emerged onto outer branches of my neighbor's lilly-pilly tree.

When I listen to a chickadee I get the "chick-a-dee-dee" sound, but I would never have thought to spell it that way.

This female Anna's humminbird was resting on the tip of a branch almost even with my position at the top of a flight of stairs.

Skinny look vs. pudgy look.

It's still froggy back in the Children's Garden, but it's a little tricky to get back there while construction is going on near its main entrance above the Succulent Garden.

Frogs in the Fog

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