Surf 'N Turf

 

Elegant Terns, Ocean Beach

Some days I do more work in retirement than I did when I had a job. And I wouldn't have it any other way. 

As someone who likes a structured day, I still get out of bed at 6 a.m. (when my wife's alarm goes off) and knock out my exercise routine in the living room while listening to NPR. Then it's coffee and a breakfast of oatmeal with cinnamon, raisins, chocolate chips, chia seeds, flax meal, walnuts, and coconut flakes. Kiss my wife good-bye, check email, read the news, brush my teeth, head out for a walk and a bike ride, lunch, shower, relax. 

If I did any photography, I'll process the images, upload a few to iNaturalist, and post a blog entry. Before I know it, it's 3 or 4 in the afternoon.

Nice work if you can get it.

I saw a group of Elegant Terns on the beach yesterday when I was riding the length of Sunset Dunes Park. They were gathered at the edge of a pool of water left by a recent high tide. I thought about going back with my camera later in the day, but I conked out on the couch while reading an ebook, only to be awakened by jackhammers on the street in front of our flat. 

I was too tired to bike back down to the beach, and I couldn't get the car out of the garage with all the road work going on, so I figured I'd bike down there first thing this morning instead of doing my usual walk. 

But morning came and I really wanted to start out with my usual walk, so I did that first. By the time I rode down to the beach with my camera, there wasn't a tern in sight.

I was thinking about where to go next when I noticed the surf was pretty big, and then I saw a large flock of Sanderlings wheel through the air and land on the beach right in front of me. When I locked my bike and walked down to the water's edge I noticed several elegant terns hanging out down there, and more showed up as the morning progressed.

Elegant Terns & Sanderlings

Industrial Waters

On the Run

Elegant Tern

The frame-filling flocks reminded me of geese up in the Klamath Basin.

Sanderlings don't make as much noise as geese, though.

Fancy Feathers

Night-Night

I don't know why, but I like to have a container ship in the background when I'm shooting at Ocean Beach.

Terns eventually bathed where I saw them yesterday, at the high tide pool halfway up the beach.

Just across the pool, little sanderlings had their own bathing area.

Even in death, the adult gull feeds the immature gull....

A raven tried to get in on the action but was rebuffed by the gull.

Dogs were the main reason I have so many shots of birds in the air. 

Although this dog didn't seem to come close to actually catching anything, a golden retriever appeared to come very close to snagging a raven.

Follow the Leader

Flock On Alert and Getting Ansty as Dog Approaches

It was a great day to hang out at the beach.

Sanderlings in Blue

Sea Rocket

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Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher

 

Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher with Orb-Weaver, Golden Gate Park

San Francisco's esteemed visitor from South of the Border made a lot of people happy this morning at Middle Lake. A dozen or so birders and photographers, at least one of whom had driven four hours to get there, had several opportunities to observe the stout-beaked flycatcher. Ironically, I had a relatively easy time photographing the rare vagrant while suffering total failure trying to photograph my local nemesis.

Perched on some willow stalks, the flycatcher surprised me by hacking up a pellet of indigestible insects' and/or spiders' exoskeletons.

The morning was free of fog, making for some strongly back-lit angles.

Rear View of the Sulphur-belly

In the morning's first sighting I had to settle for seeing the flycatcher at a considerable distance across the lake, and I had trouble spotting it even with my glasses on and others pointing it out.

Another view across Middle Lake.

Looking almost straight up a tree.

The flycatcher tried to swallow the huge orb-weaving spider once but coughed it back up, then successfully kept it down on the second swallow.

Unfortunate shot, but it shows the flycatcher trying to sort of hover in order to snag a spider off its silky web.

I didn't see the Belted Kingfisher make the catch, but it held the fish in its beak for a few moments before tossing it down the hatch.

After the kingfisher left, a Great Egret flew over to perch on the same group of logs on the edge of the lake.

Anna's Hummingbird on Tobacco Flowers, Middle Lake
(I recently dried out one of these tobacco leaves as best I could. They are extremely resinous. Burning it, an oily black smoke rose up, and the odor was semi-pleasant, at least to my nose. It didn't remind me of commercial tobacco's smell at all.)

I didn't see any back saddlebags skimmers at Middle Lake this morning, but a couple of Blue-eyed Darners were on patrol.

Heading home via South Lake, I stopped when I heard my nemesis bird, which of course eluded me, as usual. I took an interest in the Double-crested Cormorant sunning itself instead.

A lovely Great Blue Heron was poised just above and behind the cormorant.

Sailing to a New Branch

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Flyers

 

Red-bellied Sapsucker, Golden Gate Park

It was so densely foggy when I began my ride up to Mt. Tam on Thursday morning that I had to take off my glasses to get a clear view of where I was going, especially in the Presidio where fog-drip puddles might conceal road hazards. The fog remained heavy across the Golden Gate Bridge until it abruptly faded near the northern end, where the day became instantly sunny and warm.

There's been very little activity at the trail cams on Mt. Tam. I brought the cams home to get them out of the creek bed before it rains.

There was a 5.8-foot high tide at Richardson Bay right around the time I returned, so I was surprised by all the flooding on the bike route between Mill Valley and Sausalito. In normal times that area wouldn't flood below around 6.5 feet, but I hadn't accounted for the "super El Niño" effects, which can turn a 5-foot tide prediction based on lunar charts into an actual 6-foot tide.

Except for heavy fog on the Golden Gate Bridge, the sun was out in San Francisco by the time I got back, so I ate lunch, took a shower, and drove down to Middle Lake to try to get a better view of the popular vagrant that birders were still reporting there. Although it didn't show itself while I was there, it was nice to see my first-of-season Red-bellied Sapsucker, which I last photographed near South Lake back in January. We were first drawn to the bird by its interesting call while it remained out of sight, high in a densely-branched tree. Lucky for us, it soon swooped down within sight and camera range.

As I circled Middle Lake a couple of times without seeing the esteemed visitor, I became interested in the dragonflies. I'd never photographed Black Saddlebags or Common Green Darner in San Francisco before. I thought about how cool it is that a dragonfly begins its life crawling around underwater before finally climbing out to become a creature that can fly.

I also spotted an Umber Skipper that was perched on a Beach Strawberry leaf, where it was being dive-bombed by another umber skipper. The perched one would begin to vibrate its wings, and the other would begin to swoop around it. It had to be a mating ritual, but the two flew away before consummating anything in my presence.

The pool is a shallow version of its once proud self after being filled with gravel in the storms of 2022-23, and even a local Gray Fox only dropped by a couple of times in three weeks. (Composite image.)

Coyote Creek came all the way up to the boardwalk.

Luckily it was just a small portion of the Mill Valley-Sausalito Pathway that completely flooded. I hate riding my bike through salt water. I was able to ride an alternate route to avoid the worst of the flooding around the freeway interchange.

I didn't see any Turkey Vultures while I was on Mt. Tam. This one was flying over Middle Lake.

This is a composite image with the swooping skipper caught in two places.

Skipper Courtship Display

There were some unusual flying critters in the sky, and I wondered what the vagrant bird from South of the Border thought about the roaring Blue Angels.

The first time I photographed a Common Green Darner was in the Chicago area. I didn't even realize we had them here.

When I looked up Black Saddlebags dragonflies on iNaturalist this morning, the most recent sighting listed was in Texas, so these guys get around too.

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