Early Wildflower Check

 

Sunrise at Serpentine Power Point, Mt. Tamalpais

I can't remember where I read the story where Gary Snyder mentions taking Hopi elder David Monongye to this serpentine outcrop on Mt. Tamalpais, but they all felt the power of this unique vista point on the mountain and dubbed it Serpentine Power Point. I see no other name for it on either Google Maps or my Mt. Tam trail maps. However, the name does appear on a map in Tamalpais Walking by Tom Killion and Gary Snyder.

Anyway, it's a beautiful spot to watch the sun bring life and warmth into a brand new day.

My plan for the day, an early-wildflower roundup, looked better in my imagination from home than it did when I actually got to the mountain. Very little was actually in bloom, at least up around Rock Spring. I still can't quite get over how different it looks in the woods up there after all the forest-thinning. My "magnum opus" of Mt. Tam nature photography, Revealing the Landscape: Mt. Tamalpais, feels like it came from a different era.

Journey to the Sun

Waning Crescent Moon

Tamalpais Sunrise

My first wildflower stop was within the serpentine outcrop. Only this yellow sanicle and maybe a half-dozen tiny goldfields were in bloom.

Here's an even less-developed one.

I checked my usual locations for shooting stars, but even these typical early bloomers were still being very shy.

The surprise of the morning was this naturalized orchid, Epipactis helleborine, which I've usually found in late summer where the fog-drip from redwoods gets them going.

I saw it along the Matt Davis Trail while looking for a different, native, orchid.

I found only two of these calypso orchids before I gave up and turned around to look elsewhere.

I wasn't going to photograph the Ceanothus on the way back to the car, but this sprig was growing on a fairly flat plane which made it relatively quick and easy to capture.

I was a little bit heartbroken when the quail finally raised its head, only to dart into the nearby brush (along with several of its fellows) as soon as it spotted me.

As I waited in vain for the quail to come back into the open, a scrub jay came down to see what I was up to. Being adjacent to a parking lot, I had to wonder if people have been feeding them.

The warrior's plume was just getting started near the Quarry Parking Lot east of Rock Spring.

I was surprised to find a grisette freshly sprouted just a few feet away from the warrior's plume.

Part of the reason I wanted to go up today was to photograph wildflowers with raindrops still on them. If it hasn't rained in a while, it can be handy to bring a small spray bottle filled with water.

I had finished looking for wildflowers and was heading back to my car when I stumbled on these guys -- by far the best calypso sprouting of the day.

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Nesting Season

 

Anna's Hummingbird Nest, West Portal

Nesting season is off to a wet start. I hope rain is the worst of what this hummingbird has to endure. I stopped to see what some crows were doing in a pine tree across the street, and the hummer made a couple of chirps that drew my attention to the plum tree right in front of me. She looked so exposed up there, and I can only hope the nearby crows were just passing through. The tree is far from fully leafed out, so maybe she'll have more cover soon.

A little farther along I came to a school where the cacophony of noise was being produced by American robins, not school kids. (In the distance I could hear cheers and horn-honking for the striking teachers.) A handful of cedar waxwings flew across the sky, then doubled back to find out what the robins were so excited about, although I didn't notice any of them diving into the fruit-producing tree to take part in the feast. The tree was in someone's yard, too far away for me to make out the actual fruits, which I suspect were small berries.

While I watched the robins, I noticed a chestnut-backed chickadee nimbly foraging for insects and tree sap right in front of me. I guess paying attention to the chickadee upset a nearby scrub jay who probably thought any human standing still was handing out peanuts or some other tasty treat. It darted into the tree and chased off the chickadee, then bounded toward me. Sorry pal, school's out.

I managed to finish my walk without getting rained on, but I did end up donning the rain gear shortly into my bike ride. I dropped in on the barn owl to see how it was faring in the rain. I was excited to see it awake and moving, but alas it finished preening and returned to snoozing by the time I got my camera out.

On the way home I spotted a second nesting bird -- a pied-billed grebe at Blue Heron Lake that appeared to be in the same spot in which it nested last year.

Cedar Waxwings Playing It Cool

Foraging Chestnut-backed Chickadee

Scrub Jay, All Business

Scrub Jay In Profile

View Over The Aeonium aboreum From Golden Gate Heights

Pied-billed Grebe On Its Floating Nest

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Feathers & Rain

 

Allen's Hummingbird Near Elk Glen Lake

The rain came earlier than expected today, but it's been very light so far. At least I was able to get out and photograph a few birds -- a Nuttall's woodpecker, the Allen's hummingbird above (and below), orange-crowned warblers, a Say's phoebe, and the first willets I've seen on Ocean Beach in a good while.

I wondered if the Nuttall's woodpecker just liked the sound of its pecking as it drilled in euphonious "burst mode" on a telephone pole along the Sunset Parkway.

I somehow clicked past "burst mode" on my camera and ended up in 4K mode. I'd press the shutter and get a one-second MP4 file. I've been having issues with my camera lately and thought that's where the problem was, so it took a while to figure out what was actually going wrong. Anyway, I was able to save a "capture frame" from the brief video file; however, the frame was a JPEG and couldn't be run through the denoise program. Hence the grainy look.

Grainy, but still acceptable. And speaking of grain, I often shoot the equivalent of five 36-exposure rolls of film on my daily outings -- a film expense I could never have justified back in the day.

Also, getting a shot like this with Fuji Velvia at ISO 50 with a compact camera  would have been impossible.

While I was waiting for hummingbirds, a couple of orange-crowned warblers played through.

This one even showed its orange crown.

I've only seen the Say's phoebe at Balboa Natural Area once so far this winter, and it was hunting mid-way up the hill, too far away to photograph. I saw this one today on the way home from my walk.

Say's Phoebe, Grandview Park

I never believe it's really going to rain until it actually does, but I had to admit that the sky looked pretty convincing late this morning.

A small flock of willets was foraging on the beach just south of the Cliff House.

It's not uncommon to see a boogie-boarder out at Ocean Beach, but what was very unusual was seeing a skim-boarder working the shorebreak.

I began to feel the first light raindrops after snapping this photo at around 11:30 a.m.

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Snoozer

 

Snoozing Barn Owl, Golden Gate Park

Thanks to a friendly park horticulturist this morning I was finally able to see the barn owl I recently heard about. I'd walked past the right tree a few times, looking into it both today and Friday, without seeing the owl. To my mind, the tree had been one of the least likely to host an owl. Now I need to go back there sometime when it's awake, hoping it doesn't immediately fly away upon awakening.

Beach Stone & Iridescent Sea Foam

Beach Multiverse

Short-billed Gull, Ocean Beach

Small Mussel Shell

Mole Crab Skeleton

This immature Western gull had a mole crab, but I didn't see whether it swallowed the crab or dropped and lost it. Whatever became of the crab occurred during the brief viewfinder blackout in my camera.

Second-winter Western Gull

This morning at Ocean Beach off Noriega Street.

He's going for it.

My camera's "burst mode" ran out of gas, but the surfer got completely tubed and even managed to emerge unscathed.

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Mr. Scruffles

 

Mr. Scruffles, North Lake

As soon as I saw this young mangy coyote I knew it was the same one I saw scampering down a trail on January 19th at Middle Lake. It seemed to be enjoying the sun's warmth, and maybe even the scent of wafting molecules of mite-killing eucalyptus oil. A park ranger on the scene had called animal control, but the coyote left the area before anyone came. Probably just as well since Animal Control wouldn't treat the coyote's mange anyway, and the animal wasn't being a nuisance.

One bright spot is that if Mr. Scruffles can beat the mange on his own, he'll have gained some immunity to better fight off any future mite-infestation.

As the coyote left the area heading south around the lake, I got to talking with a guy who had just photographed a barn owl in a nearby tree. Unfortunately it wasn't so nearby that he could point to it, and I was unable to find the owl based on what I could recall from his directions. The sight of a barn owl rising from my neighbor's oak tree like a ghost in the night, then circling a couple of times before flying out of sight, is one of the coolest things I've ever seen out our back window. I'd love to see one of these owls again, even sleeping in a tree.

The sun backlit the huge leaves of this unknown plant in the Fuchsia Dell and created an irresistible glow.

A different frame on the same leaf.

Backlight on the bison was a little tougher to handle. If I exposed for the shadows of the bison, the mustard flowers blew out. Lightroom allowed me to pull more shadow detail from the file than I thought I'd get.

I had stopped by the Bison Paddock fence to check on one of the nest boxes that had three Western bluebirds standing on it. I didn't even notice the bison for a minute. This one was very close -- just behind the twiggy pokeberry bush.

Mr. Scruffles at Rest

While I was looking for the owl I got sidetracked by my first brown creeper sighting of 2026, and a downy woodpecker that flew away before I could photograph it.

The creeper was moving so fast I'm not sure if its beak is open because it just snagged an insect from that crack in the stump, or what.

Ruddy Duck Hen, Blue Heron Lake

Ruddy Duck Drake, Blue Heron Lake

Bufflehead Drake, Blue Heron Lake

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