The Berry Eater

 

Raccoon In Blackberry Thicket, North Lake

After listening to a show on the radio this morning I wondered if the cure for a lot of life's dissatisfactions could be as simple as cultivating an authentic sense of gratitude for one's life as it is. If you're bored with climbing the ladder solely in pusuit of more money and whatever self-respect you hope to buy with that money, try climbing the ladder toward greater gratitude. Or simply be kinder to yourself and the people close to you. Learn a new language or how to play a musical instrument. Take up nature photography!

I don't know. More and more I come back to gratitude being a superpower, and a superpower that anybody can cultivate. It slays boredom, self-pity, anxiety -- you name it.

I wasn't sure I was going to have any photos to post today. During my walk I was drawn to patterns of tree bark. Birds are a great doorway into nature, but even something as simple as patterns can slow us down enough to look more closely, or from a different perspective. Nevertheless, looking for patterns to photograph can be hit-or-miss, and I wasn't sure how I'd feel about the patterns once I got home and opened them up in Photoshop.

But then, as I was tooling around North Lake on my bike, I spotted a raccoon in a tree that was tangled with blackberry vines. I gingerly got off my bike and got out my camera, and the raccoon stayed put! Eventually it even resumed hunting for berries. So I ended up having a post afterall, thanks to something a little cuter, if less cerebral, than tree bark.

The cells that make wood are dead at maturity. They literally grow up to die, to support the rest of the plant. This pocked specimen is from a weathered stump near the south entrance to the Oak Woodlands in Golden Gate Park.

Oak Bark

Eucalyptus Bark

Song Sparrow Walks On Water

I wondered if this was the same great blue heron I saw in a tree at Lily Lake last week. A cormorant was having some success hunting underwater, but I didn't see the heron make a single strike.

A few of the water lilies are still blooming, but if you're looking specifically for water lilies, you might also try the lily pond in the San Francisco Botanical Garden.

The heron didn't seem to move a muscle for several minutes. I wondered if it would be content to catch a mere minnow, or if it was waiting for something bigger to swim by.

Leaf Patterns at the National AIDS Memorial Grove

Bark Patterns, Whiskey Hill

A daddy longlegs photobombs my bark pattern.

Cute!

I was a little surprised the raccoon was all by itself.

I've snagged a few blackberries myself the last couple of weeks, especially at Grandview Park. I still remember a great berry patch in my neighborhood that unfortunately got dug up to make room for a new house. (Surprisingly, there still are a couple of empty lots around.)

As the raccoon wandered into deep cover, I heard a cooper's hawk calling nearby and went to investigate.

Raccoon & Cooper's Hawk

Another chilly, windy day on the west side of the city again today. This is the gull's nest that used to be near the black oystercatcher nest, before the oystercatchers abandoned it. I did wonder why I saw two oystercatchers for a few days, then only one for a few more days, and then none. A solo bird is never going to be able to hatch and raise chicks out in the open like that, with all those gulls about. Maybe the first one left because the foraging wasn't good enough.

There was very little bird activity on Seal Rocks this morning. The lack of birds and the chilly gray day gave no cause to linger. I'm going to miss it anyway.

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Juvenile Black Phoebe

 

Young Black Phoebe at Cliff House

As I was looking for shorebirds on the beach below the Cliff House this morning (and seeing not a single one) I noticed what looked like a black phoebe. Sort of. I guess I'd never really seen (or photographed) a juvenile before. I thought I saw two of them at first, but one flew off and didn't come back. The still images in this post show both birds, both juveniles. I hung out for a while (though not as long as I would have had it been sunny and warm), but no adult came to feed them.

Video Clip of Preening Juvenile Black Phoebe

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Salvia Lovers

 

Anna's Hummingbird at Elk Glen Lake

Way back as a botany student in Santa Barbara I had a part-time job where I sat next to a fun and interesting young woman (younger than me) of Mexican descent whose brother was a botanist. One day Rosa excitedly told me that her brother had discovered and described a new desert plant that became named for him. The way she pronounced it went by me, so she wrote it down: s-a-l-v-i-l-l-a. I was still perplexed until I realized with joy that she was spelling it in phonetic Spanish (and putting the accent on the second syllable when she spoke it). It's funny, the things we remember forever, and I still smile at the memory.

As I wind down my San Francisco nature project this week I can't help looking forward to what will come next. One thing I was reminded of yesterday while shooting on Mt. Tam was how satisfying it is to shoot with a full-frame camera and a tripod (which takes nothing away from the satisfaction of shooting hand-held with a compact camera). The other thing on my mind lately is how my San Francisco forays have deepened my appreciation for the nature we have here, thanks to sizeable and well-kept parks, and both ocean and bay coastlines.

Because I photograph the same routes week after week -- my walking and biking routes, that is -- I like to think of those routes as transects. I encounter and photograph whatever shows itself to me, rather than hunting for anything specific. As gratifying as that has been, I can't help feeling a desire to go deeper on something, even though I don't know yet what that would be.

Enlarging my transects to the whole state of California seems appealing while I'm sitting at home, but less so when I'm driving in heavy traffic, looking for shaded refuge on a scorching day, or burning up a lot of miles with little to show for it. Hopefully the coming break will provide the time and space to let the next idea take form and seep into my spirit.

This was one of several mourning doves pecking in the dirt along the Sunset Parkway this morning. When I turned my back to slyly get my camera out of my knapsack, all the doves flew away except this brave soul.

A raven drinks from the little creek above Mallard Lake.

Handsome Fellow

I was surprised to see a mallard hen sitting placidly on top of this tree stump. She raised her head a bit as I approached but that was it. She was comfy and wasn't going to let me spoil anything just by showing up.

The Hen of Contentment

The hummer shared this patch of Mexican bush sage (Salvia leucantha) with the bumblebees for quite some time without being chased off by a rival or being spooked by a nearby photographer.

I've passed this patch many times, but today was the first time I've been able to photograph a hummer there.

I was surprised to find this lone jimson weed growing above Elk Glen Lake. This is Datura stramonium, which used to grow in abundance in Mt. Tam's Potrero Meadow before it all faded away.

There were patches of baby blue eyes around the jimson weed.

With a few tidy tips sprinkled in as well.

A couple of red-winged blackbirds foraged for grass seeds around the margins of Elk Glen Lake.

I detoured to the big patch of red Salvia gesneriiflora flowers again this week and found the same Allen's hummingbird presiding over it.

He briefly fed on some of the flowers, but too far back in the patch for me to get a clear view. While I was there, an older street guy approached as he was improbably pushing one of those very thin scooters weighted down with his backpack along the sandy trail. Hard work! He was talking to himself and smelled of unwashed clothes and alcohol, but he stopped to chat for a while and remarked on how much the big red Salvia has grown over the years.

This noisy young fledgeling was begging for food, but I couldn't tell what kind of bird it was.

At least, not until its song sparrow parent showed up.

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Mt. Tam Visit

 

Mountain Dandelion and Winecup Clarkia, Mt. Tamalpais

I haven't been getting up to Mt. Tam very much the last few months, ever since I took down my trail cameras. Today I decided to drive up with my full-frame camera and macro lens to see what I might find. I also brought the Lumix for more long-range shots, too lazy to bring a heavy telephoto for the Nikon.

There were some interesting beetles on the yellow mariposa lilies. I believe this one is red-stutured attalus (Attalus rufiventris).

Flower beetles feeding on yellow mariposa lily.

Yellow Mariposa Lily with Serpentine Rock in the Background

Mt. Tamalpais Bristly Jewelflower (Streptanthus glandulosus ssp. pulchellus) with Serpentine Background

Mt. Tamalpais Bristly Jewelflower (Streptanthus glandulosus ssp. pulchellus) with Serpentine Background

This is a similar set-up to the shot at the top of the post, but with dogtail grass added in.

Harvest Brodiaea

Harvest Brodiaea

Yellow Mariposa Lily Near Young Madrone
(You can just make out a small flower spider left of center.)

Acmon Blue Butterfly on Yellow Mariposa Lily

Mournful Duskywing Butterfly on Rosinweed

Mournful Duskywing Butterfly on Rosinweed

Sachem Skipper on Yellow Mariposa Lily

California Sister Butterfly Resting on Oak Sprout

Pale Swallowtail on Thistle

Pale Swallowtail on Cobwebby Thistle

I heard a bird that sounded a little like a robin (check out the Wil Hershberger recording), but it turned out to be this guy, a Cassin's vireo according to Merlin (amazing that it gave an ID based on this angle).

When I first spotted this fence lizard, the sun must have been hitting it at just the right angle to show off its green-spotted colors. Unfortunately, it moved into the shade before I could photograph it and the colors disappeared. When it finally came back out, the stunning green speckles were no longer sparkling.

Fog ran pretty high up the mountain even until late morning, but stayed well below Rock Spring. 

I pulled these seeds out of my socks when I got home.

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