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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Heron's Head

 

Willet Nabs a Shore Crab at Heron's Head Park This Morning

I was standing on the back stoop yesterday, overlooking our garden which has been abused by squirrels (besides riddling the garden with holes, they have eaten one succulent, leaf by leaf, and recently ran off with another whole plant), when this Cooper's hawk swooped right past me and landed on the neighbor's fence to look for a meal. I ran upstairs to grab my camera and was surprised to see the hawk still there when I returned. Unfortunately, it left without taking a squirrel along for a ride....

I recently read about improvements being made to India Basin Waterfront Park, so I was a little surprised this morning to see that the park has been demolished, only a year after its grand opening. I guess it'll have an even grander opening sometime in the future.

Meanwhile, the bird life at Heron's Head Park has picked up quite a bit since I was last out there.

Something was putting the shorebirds on edge. I never knew why with any certainty, but they appeared to be quite nervous around a nearby great egret that dwarfed the snowy egret above in size. In nature, throwing your weight around is par for the course.

I don't often see a meadowlark in the city. This one appears to be in jail.

It eventually came back over to my side of the fence.

But not for long.

It called out from the top of a toyon bush but received no reply.

Meadowlark with Yellow Building in the Distance

Kayakers on the Fog-shrouded Bay

In no hurry to get back on the road, I sat down to watch this lone willet for a minute.

The willet very quickly caught this lined shore crab, which seemed a little too big to deal with. I'm not sure if the crab ever got away or was mortally wounded, but the willet never appeared to really eat it.

Quick Clip of Spotted Sandpiper

Spotted Sandpiper at Rest

Urban Kayaking

A red admiral landed briefly on some gumweed flowers, but quickly abandoned them in favor of warming up on the rocky shore.

I'd never seen a surf scoter on land before. I wondered if it was injured.

It wasn't. When I got too close, it bolted into the water.

Ghost Ship Belching Smoke

Container Ship Anchored Near Port of Oakland

Urban Paddle-boarding. It looked like paddle boards and kayaks could be rented at Crane Cove.

There was a popular new sculpture along the Embarcadero.

A flock of gulls and elegant terns was hanging out on the sandbar at Crissy Lagoon. The two darker birds in the lower right corner are killdeer.

I love the sound of fog horns on a sunny day....

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Times Change

 

Resting Great Blue Heron at Lily Lake on Friday

As I biked past one of my favorite trees in Golden Gate Park on Wednesday, I thought to myself that I should come back to photograph it with my full-frame camera before winter storms blew it down. I had no reason to think it might fall over, but for some reason the possibility entered my mind. 

When I rode by again on Friday (Halloween) I was shocked to see that the tree had been cut down! All that was left was a low stump. A park employee at the scene told me the tree had developed a crack running up its trunk. He said an arborist noticed last year that its trunk had developed a three-foot-long crack, and when they checked it again this year the crack had increased five-fold, to fifteen feet. They figured it was better to cut it down now than to risk lives by letting nature take its course.

Although I subscribe to the digital version of the San Francisco Chronicle, I missed the story about the tree's demise. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they actually covered the event, which happened on Thursday, the day I was on Mt. Tam. Apparently the Monterey cypress was over a hundred years old! No wonder it was so full of old man's beard.  

Lily Lake's Namesake

I'd seen this incipient chicken-of-the-woods as I biked past North Lake on Wednesday, when I didn't have a camera with me. Not even my phone. I snapped this shot when I rode by again on Friday.

The flush of fungi probably needs more rain to grow out.

This is a phone snap of the 100-year-old Monterey cypress in Hellman's Hollow from September 2022.

This is what it looked like when I passed by on Friday.

It was kind of beautiful to find flowers left on the stump when I went down there this morning. A lot of folks loved this tree. I measured 112 inches at what looked like its longest diameter at the cut (from roughly 7 o'clock to 1 o'clock).

Foggy Autumn Scene This Morning at Pioneer Meadow

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