Finding Balance

 

Anna's Hummingbird Sticks the Landing, Grandview Park

I often find myself caught between the desire to explore nature beyond the city, and the desire to just appreciate what I've got within walking and biking distance. I've gotten so far out of the car habit that it seems onerous to get back into it. I know there's a balance to strike in there somewhere, and eventually that balance will probably reveal itself.

The container ship YM Ubiquity heads out the Golden Gate on its way to Taiwan.

A resident hummingbird keeps his eyes peeled for interlopers.

Video clips with a white-crowned sparrow and a hummingbird.

Junco With a Beak Full of Bugs

I wasn't seeing brown creepers at all, and now I'm seeing them every day. However, it's still rare to see one in the sun.

This one, above the Fuchsia Dell in Golden Gate Park, even stopped in the sun's warmth to preen its feathers.

California Poppies on the Edge of Metson Lake

* * *

Growing Grebelets

 

The pied-billed grebe chicks are still staying close to the nest, and to mama, at Blue Heron Lake.

You hear them before you see them. The tell-tale high-pitched cheeping of the grebe chicks, that is. I'm glad they're no longer hanging out in their nests. The nest they were born in is virtually invisible from shore, now that the willow has thoroughly leafed out. In fact, I wonder if leaf intrusion is why the grebes built a second nest closer to the edge of the willow's drip line.

I arrived at the lake at around 10:30, earlier than usual, and the blue heron nests in front of the boat house were noisy with begging nestlings. Usually all is quiet when I arrive, and for a while I've been wondering if the nestlings had fledged. I was probably a little too late for the actual feeding time, as I soon watched several herons fly out of the nests, heading southwest. I wondered whether they were all adults, or if some were fledglings following along to be shown how to hunt. 

Testing the Wings on the Boat House Island

One of the grebelets was more aggressively begging than its sibling.

It tried to induce feeding a few times, to no avail.

I suspect this is the same nestling spreading its wings as the one who was showing off the last time I photographed this nest east of Strawberry Hill.

Speed Goose

Water Off A Goose's Back

The great blue herons aren't the only big nestlings yet to fledge. (The black oystercatchers at Seal Rocks are still sitting on eggs, by the way.)

Incoming!

* * *

Ruckus of Robins

 

American Robin Gathering Blackberries Near Mallard Lake

I encountered a family of robins making a ruckus as I approached Mallard Lake from the west, with adults gathering ripening blackberries to feed to their young progeny. Most of the fledglings remained hidden behind a thick canopy of California buckeye leaves. The adults would dart in with a berry, then dart right back out to get more. Eventually the fledglings came out into the open, and the whole group kept moving west in their tireless search for sustenance.

Lefty was out in his hunting area again this morning. Something in the nearby foliage got his attention a few times, but he never pounced. I'd thought the snipped left ear was due to a fight with another animal, but apparently it's what vets do after they catch a feral cat, which they sterilize and vaccinate before returning it to the wild. The clipped ear serves notice that the cat doesn't need to be caught again.

Anna's Hummingbird Nectaring On Karo Flowers

Bumblebee Napping on Wild Radish

Allen's Hummingbird Nectaring on Wild Radish

Song Sparrow in Wild Radish Patch

Every time I see a hummingbird in the mustards and radishes, it's an Allen's.

American Robin With Blackberry for Junior

Junior, The Fledgling Robin

Allen's Hummingbird Ruffling Its Feathers

Here she is unruffled, but still looking a bit ruffled anyway.

I had a little better luck with a brown creeper today.

Brown Creeper, Golden Gate Park

Brown Creeper With Caterpillar

I haven't been seeing black-crowned night herons very much lately at North Lake, and I've been pleasantly surprised each rare time I do see one or two.

I wondered if they are actually there almost all the time, but tucked away in more concealed locations.

Looking out my bedroom window, I spotted a pair of fledgling crows hanging out on my neighbor's roof (the same neighbor with the chickadee nest box). The crows were born in a small pine tree that I can see from our back yard.

They were very relaxed as long as I was behind a window, but they flew away as soon as I actually stepped outside.

While I was out there I stopped to check out the red-masked parakeets in my neighbor's oak tree.

Some brilliant eruptions going on at Kilauea the other day....

* * *

Chickadees

 

Chestnut-backed Chickadee in Oak Woodlands, Golden Gate Park

When I recently found out one of my neighbors had put up a nest box for chickadees, I immediately decided to do the same thing next year. My neighbor's first nest box was installed in his oak tree, where it was taken over by squirrels, so I'll have to consider that. Just yesterday I watched as four different squirrels chased each other through my neighbors' yards and my own. I think it will be tricky to find a place the chickadees will like that the squirrels won't be able to commandeer.

This week is the anniversary of the death of our cat, Fuzzy Girl (aka Coco), so my wife got us a reservation later today at KitTea Cat Lounge. I'm sure it will take a great effort of will to keep from adopting one or more of the rescue cats there. It wouldn't be very good timing anyway, as we're going to be caring for my wife's mother soon and will have little or no spare time for either cats or nature photography. I'll have to put a pause on posting for likely the rest of the year, beginning in mid-June. In lieu of new work, I might post pages from my Mt. Tam book, and maybe a couple of other ongoing book projects that I look forward to working on again eventually. 

There was one or two noisy baby chickadees in the woods begging for food, but the adults were chirping too, and I can't recall if this one on the dried stalk of an old bee plant is one or the other.

I liked how the lichen was draped as if wind-blown behind the chickadee.

The one on the left is being fed by the one on the right.

Not very good shots of the brown creeper I saw on Whiskey Hill, but I include them anyway since I see these birds so rarely.

Apparently they do nest here in the city, at least in places like the Presidio.

* * *

The Beaked Tribe

 

Black Oystercatcher Foraging Below Cliff House

What would nature in San Francisco be without birds?! For me, at least, it would mean far less variety and far less to motivate my photography even though I'm interested in pretty much all biodiversity, from insects and fungi, to flowers and wildlife, to seascapes and landscapes. Thankfully, I live in a city that has it all. 

Also, I'm a "variety is the spice of life" kinda guy, whereas someone else might be more interested in going all-in on something more specific, like urban coyotes. Given that I only photograph what I encounter on my daily walks and bike rides, being into variety without having to be too picky about what constitutes a good subject is the only way to go. 

I'd just started my walk when this Nuttall's woodpecker flew across the street to land on a telephone pole. I got my camera out just as it flew back across the street to land on a strawberry madrone, which would have made a great photo backdrop if only the bird would have come out in the open. Instead it flew across the street yet again and landed in a sycamore tree.

Coming up from West Portal through Forest Hill I encountered this chestnut-backed chickadee in a bottlebrush eucalyptus just a few feet away and was surprised it didn't immediately fly away.

That flattened thing in its beak is a squashed mole crab.

Three snowy egrets for the price of one.

A black oystercatcher was prying for barnacles on the rocks below the Cliff House as the tide was going out this morning. Presumably this is the mate of the other one that was still sitting on its eggs out at Seal Rocks.

Black Oystercatcher on Seaweed

Sometimes you just want to take a break from wandering and tattling.

Bando's feathers have been kind of a mess for the last week or so, hopefully because he's molting into his adult plumage.

Although I still saw the red-necked phalarope yesterday at Blue Heron Lake, I did not see it today. The Canada goose that was on its fluffy nest has been gone the last few days, and there's virtually no sign that its nest was ever there. The pied-billed grebe chicks continue to stick close to home, although a second home nest has been constructed near the first one, but in a spot more concealed from my view. Meanwhile, I was surprised to see an adult black-crowned night heron, which I photographed through a tree with multiple trunks.

This is what happened when I stepped to the side to get a clear view. I watched where it flew to, though....

"What, you again?"

"Well I guess I am beautiful, so go ahead and snap your picture."

Late March vs. Late May on the Sunset Parkway

* * *