Mushroom Season on Mt. Tamalpais

 

Panther Amanita, Mt. Tamalpais

Taking a slow stroll down the Cataract Trail from Rock Spring yesterday, my wife and I remarked on all the mushrooms we were seeing (most of which had been picked or kicked over the weekend). We hadn't seen such a profusion in quite a few years, thanks to an early start to the rainy season. I wasn't sure I was going to post anything since I'd only brought my compact camera and didn't feel like my snapshots had done justice to the bounty. 

There was another guy up there photoraphing the mushrooms, and we tipped him off to the panther at the top of this post. He soon passed us on the trail and we didn't run into him again. However, higher up the trail we spotted a chanterelle that had been left in the open (and which hadn't been there on the way down), and I wondered if he had reciprocated. There were quite a few more undisturbed chanterelles growing nearby. Some years I don't see chanterelles at all, and I wondered if they only come out when we get those good October rains.

My wife suggested a good read that I'd like to pass along, called Raising Hare: A Memoir, by Chloe Dalton. The author is great at describing her detailed observations of the tiny hare she adopts from the wild, and which opens her up to a whole world of nature she had not previously appreciated.

There were a couple of patches of witch's hat mushrooms, a species I don't find every year along Cataract Creek.

It was also good to find lots of Mycena groups like these.

A lot of the sulfur tuft mushrooms we found along the trail were old, but some huge logs at Laurel Dell were so chockablock with them that there were old and new ones growing together.

This looks to be a later phase of the Onnia I photographed in early October, when they looked more like bread sticks.

Right around the corner from the Onnia, and part of the same fallen Doug fir, was this beautiful display of swirling wood grain.

Upper Cataract Falls

Most of the canyon maple leaves were off the trees and on the ground.

The newt tried to escape when it saw me but quickly ran into a dead end. It stopped like this, like a perp in a cop show waiting to be frisked.

Sunlight etched its way through the cloud cover to create a dazzling light show on the Pacific Ocean.

From the light-show vantage point I also spotted this group of wild turkeys enjoying a flat patch of ground. I thought they might start a display dance, but they were more interested in pecking for food.

* * *

Hermits in the Pokeberry

 

Pokeberry Peek-a-Boo

I thought the rain was done for the day, so I headed out for a walk down to Blue Heron Lake via the two tile stairways. It was windy and cold, and all the birds were smartly hanging out on the leeward side of Strawberry Hill. 

I stopped at a pokeberry bush to see if there was any action since a hummingbird had been chittering near it, and it made me wonder if the tiny pokeweed flowers actually had nectar. The hummer buzzed off before I could even lay eyes on it, but first one hermit thrush, then another and another, popped out from the ground cover and darted into the berry bush. The hermit above had just snagged and swallowed a berry so fast that I couldn't fire the shutter in time to catch it.

I walked home and was just about to get on the bike when the rain started up again, putting the kibosh on my ride, but at least I hadn't been caught out in the open on foot.

Hermit thrush about to leap into the berry bush.

Hermit in the Berry Garden

I'd been going after a nearby Townsend's warbler when I was distracted by this brown creeper. There was a lot of bird activity on the east side of the hill.

At least three Steller's jays started whooping it up behind me, and I wondered at first if a hawk or owl had flown into a nearby tree. But then I saw this guy with what looks like a peanut and wondered if they were all going ga-ga over the nutritious morsel.

Heron Feet

I wonder if this is one of the pied-billed grebe youngsters I photographed in their nest last spring.

* * *

Yellow-rump Country

 

Yellow-rumped Warbler in Buckeye, SF Botanical Garden

I've been reading another book by the biochemist Nick Lane, called Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life. The principal characters in this drama aren't people, but the cells and organelles such as mitochondria that comprise our bodies. 

The intricacy of life always blows my mind. I think about the warbler in the photo above starting out as a single-celled zygote, invisible to the naked eye, now a completely put-together flying animal that swoops through tree branches and hawks after termites lifting into the sunshine's warmth. 

And of course, the guy making the photograph started out as a single-celled zygote too. Yet somehow, each of us single-celled zygotes knew how to grow ourselves into a bird or a human or any other kind of critter. Yes, DNA plays a role, but think about the intricacy and origin of DNA and your mind gets blown all over again. We do not understand how we got here. 

Yet here we are! Amazing. Such an awesome world, and it's an honor to be a living part of this deepest of all great mysteries.

I was impressed by the volume of resin being dripped out by the cones of this spruce (Picea alcoquiana) in the botanical garden.

This squirrel seemed glad to have some sunshine to sploot out in after all the rain we've been having.

A few golden-crowned sparrows were burrowed into dead leaves, also soaking up the sun.

Golden-crowned Sparrows & Western Bluebird

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Some ravens chased a red-tailed hawk across the sky.

Townsend's Warbler

Wind-ruffled Feathers

Western Bluebird with Grasshopper

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

White-crowned Sparrow

This pipevine swallowtail butterfly was flitting around the part of the garden where it was probably born. The area has since been ripped out and is being replanted, but several pipevine plants were allowed to remain. It'll be interesting to see if there's enough pipevine left to feed caterpillars in the spring.

* * *

After the River

 

Purple Finch Eating Berries, Golden Gate Park

When the latest storm was being forecast, it was being called an "atmospheric river," and I wondered why that term seems to be used almost every time it rains these days. I asked Google AI and got this response:

"The term 'atmospheric river' is being used more frequently for storms because it's a scientifically accurate and descriptive name for the long, narror bands of water vapor in the sky that carry significant moisture. While the phenomenon isn't new, the broader term was coined by researchers in the 1990s to describe these moisture-laden plumes, which often look like rivers from a satellite's perspective. Media and weather services are now using the more technical term to better communicte the storm's potential impact, especially when compared to older, more regional names like the 'Pineapple Express.'"

I kept digging a little more and found an excellent story posted two days ago on KQED's web site. One interesting takeaway is that atmospheric rivers aren't always a "big bad storm." They can also be "quite gentle, gradual, or beneficial," according to a climate scientist. 

The one we just had seemed to fit the "beneficial" bill, at least around here. 

These might be toyon berries, though they look a bit pale.

Whatever they were, the purple finch was into them. A nearby robin wanted to get some but was too fearful in my presence. The finch said, "Fine, more for me."

Golden-crowned Sparrow, Oak Woodlands

A small bee bumped into the snare and triggered the spider to swoop in from hiding. But the bee didn't get stuck, so (not to waste a trip) the spider added a little more webbing then scuttled back to her hidden lair.

There were three snares that had elongated tubes engulfed in webbing nearby. This one looked like a caterpillar. There were several very tiny spiders moving away from it, and I wondered if they had recently hatched from within.

First Flush of Honey Mushrooms, Fuchsia Dell

The Dell also had a few of these lattice stinkhorn mushrooms that had grown too tall to support their own weight (perhaps after becoming waterlogged in the storm).

The red-shouldered hawk was noisily sqawking for attention, but it flew away almost as soon as I looked up at it.

Calla Leaves

Calla Lily

Trumpet Flower Near Lily Lake

Soft-looking pillows of chicken-of-the-woods fungus were growing out of a eucalyptus that also sprouted them last year and the year before.

Termite Hatch, Golden Gate Heights

I encountered the first termite hatch a block from home, but the one in the video is from Golden Gate Park. A large dragonfly was snatching them out of the air, but I was unable to photograph it. Another hatch at North Lake was being picked off by yellow-rumped warblers.

I guess the Cliff House is going to keep its name when it's refurbished and reopened, possibly in late 2026. Assuming that happens, I hope visitors will still be able to freely walk out on the back deck to take in the view.

One of the red-tailed hawks that hangs around the northern end of the Great Highway had just pounced on something but didn't come up with a strike.

After perching on the sign, it made another strike attempt and again came up empty. I watched it make three unsuccessful strikes in maybe five minutes.

After giving the meadow at Balboa Natural Area one last look, the hawk soon took off across the highway (thankfully just high enough to avoid being hit by a car) to perch over a patch of ice plant in the hope of spotting a mouse.

* * *