Woodsy

 

Lactarius & Mycena

I went looking for mushrooms this morning along a trail that I'd planned to hike on my last visit. Back then I'd changed my mind due to a forestry crew operating chainsaws along my route. All was quiet today, being a Saturday, but I kept thinking, "Wow!" as I hiked out through the newly thinned forest. The whole feel of the place is very different from anything I've experienced in around thirty years of hiking up there. I'm not complaining, mind you. Just saying. I'm actually looking forward to seeing how the forest floor develops over the next few years. Will all that new biomass create a fungal bonanza? I wondered if any of the mycology folks from SF State are studying the before-and-after of it all.

Amanitas and Friends Along the Simmons Trail

Slippery Jack Cap

Beneath the Cap

Puffball and Friends

Radiating with Mycena

With all the room available on the forest floor, these guys fight for space....

Wavy Gills

Twins

Acorn Pantry #1

Acorn Pantry #2

Acorn Woodpecker

Some of these fruitbodies were fairly fresh, while others on the log had already dried out. Not sure if this is a Fomitopsis sp. or what.

Moss & Lichen

I believe this is a variegated meadowhawk. It would rise up and hover as it nibbled on gnat-like insects that formed loose clouds in the sunshine just above the giant chain ferns in the wet draw near Cataract Creek where leopard lilies bloom in the summer.

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New Routes

 

Nuttall's Woodpecker, S.F. Botanic Garden

I was pleasantly surprised when Google Maps gave me an unexpected return route from the Cosumnes River Preserve. Instead of directing me onto I-5 it sent me back out West Walnut Grove Road (which is also the way to the crane-viewing areas along Staten Island Road). That was a beautiful drive, and I had the road almost all to myself. I looked foward to more of the same as I turned onto Isleton Road, but it wasn't long before I got stuck in a chain of maybe 25 cars backed up behind a slow-poke driving a commercial van well below the speed limit. Oh well. It was a great route while it lasted.

After the rainy portion of the storm had mostly moved east yesterday morning, I  could have done my usual walk to the beach via Ortega Street and back via Noriega, but I decided to find a new route that would put me in the park. I needed to have a more varied nature experience than I would have found in the Outer Sunset. I ended up walking down two sets of mosaic stairways to reach the park at Blue Heron Lake, where I walked the spiral trail to the top of Strawberry Hill, then over to the Botanic Garden and back up the hill to home. 

This was the most photogenic of the three mourning doves that were hunkered down at the bottom of Grandview Park to escape the fierce winds that continued even after the bulk of the rain had passed.

Two sets of mosaic stairs, looking down then up. That's the Moraga Steps on the left and the Hidden Garden Steps on the right.

It's not an animal and it's not a plant. It's not even a fungus. It's Fuligo septica, and this spongy mass is its spore-bearing aethalium -- the largest of any slime mold. Being both common, large, and brightly colored, the scrambled-egg slime is probably our most frequently seen slime mold. 

A shy hermit thrush landed on the flowering branch of a nearby pokeweed plant, but it really wanted one of the ripe berries growing on another nearby branch. It hopped over and finally snagged one, then darted back into cover.

This purple bromeliad fly (thanks to iNaturalist for the ID) was much bigger than your average house fly. 

I'd checked the red-legged frog pond in the Children's Garden, but there was no sign of either frog or pollywog. Someone had been pulling out a lot of the aquatic plants in the pond, and I hoped no frogs were harmed in the effort. As I was leaving the area I was surprised to see a red-shouldered hawk on a low branch, and surprised again when it stayed put as I pointed my camera for a photo. I took a couple of quick shots and moved on, not wanting to disturb it into flight.

The Nuttall's woodpecker checked out several different trees and shrubs in the California Garden, including this still-standing but 99-percent dead manzanita (that I suspect will be replaced soon).

It was briefly in the big buckeye, but I couldn't get an angle on it in there. The lichen-crusted manzanita was still a pretty good perch though.

The California Garden's sacred datura plants are done flowering, and their thornapple fruits are earning their name.

Several lesser goldfinches were eating evening primrose seeds in the California Garden.

Lesser goldfinch at its lunch spot.

This little guy was crossing a sidewalk in Forest Hill. I'm hoping someone at iNaturalist will come through with an ID, but it seems like many caterpillars are difficult to name.

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Sandhill Cranes

 

Sandhill Cranes at Cosumnes River Preserve

Sunrise is a gift that opens very slowly, and the anticipation itself is part of the gift.

It was still pitch dark when I arrived this morning at Woodbridge Ecological Reserve near Lodi. I got out of the car expecting to hear the familiar croaking of the cranes, but they were silent. The dominant natural noise was delivered instead by countless coyotes. I couldn't see any of them of course, but I'd love to have been able to see the one particular coyote whose howling rose above the din of all the others. Was it calling in its kin to a kill? Showing its strength? Or maybe just feeling jazzed after a great night of being a coyote.

Only one or two cranes vocalized in the darkness, so I didn't know what to expect. Maybe there were only going to be one or two cranes out there. Thankfully, the vocalizing did start to pick up as it got light out, but the nearest cranes were pretty far away. As the morning got brighter, what few cranes there were, soon peeled off in twos and threes and flew away.

It was just barely bright enough to get this shot at f/16. Moments later, all but a couple of the cranes had lifted off and winged south.

Mt. Diablo with Sandhill Crane

Crane Flexing its Wings

In the distance I watched sparse flocks of geese and cranes fly out to their morning feeding areas.

Cranes on the Wing

These were the only two cranes that flew anywhere near me.

A flock of red-winged blackbirds was busy in the same field as a few cranes. A farmer running a disk harrow was off-camera to the right.

Sometimes the cranes are frisky with each other, but this was the only display-tussle I saw all day.

Blackbirds would sometimes circle the cranes before landing.

This was another roadside feeding area with a flooded stubble field, also along Woodbridge Road.

I couldn't see what they were picking up out there, but apparently they pluck out fallen grains from the harvest.

A flock of shorebirds flies past white-fronted geese.

This great egret was lounging atop some grape vines.

I drove the short distance to Staten Island Road, where I found a few cranes in a field more colorful than the plowed ones at Woodbridge Road.

A young sandhill crane forages with its possible family group. There was another adult off-camera.

There were lots of pintails out at Cosumnes Preserve. The secondary parking area was closed for some reason, but the birding was very good up Desmond Road (where Franklin Boulevard ends due to construction).

There were lots of white-fronted geese cackling and humming (yes, humming; I think it was a warning to other geese to keep their distance) in the flooded fields.

This flock of geese raised up for unknown reasons. The sound of their wings as they first lifted off was incredible, and I didn't recognize it right away. There was no vocalization at all, just a rushing sound of wind. The honking came in after they got well into the air.

After circling around, a few of the geese floated down to land next to a small group of cranes.

This was the closest any cranes came to the road all morning.

Such a beautiful bird.

I hadn't used the video on my full-frame camera in so long, I didn't realize I was only capturing sound when I thought I was recording video of the cranes. I still didn't have the exposure quite right when I was recording the geese later on, but at least it's not completely dark.

This is a screen grab of Mt. Shasta from yesterday. Today it's just gray and rainy, like it will probably be around here tomorrow.

Looking for something else, I came across this panorama from 15 years ago, November 4, 2010.

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