Bug Safari at Blue Heron Lake

 

Black-crowned Night Heron, Blue Heron Lake

Birds are excellent, but bugs are nature too, and the variety, even here in the city, turns out to be more interesting than I expected. I look forward to doing bug safaris at various locations to see what there is to find. 

There was a black-crowned night heron chilling just offshore from where I started this morning's outing. Good thing, probably. Otherwise there'd be a crazy-looking spider at the top of the page.

On another subject, I was going over my finances yesterday and got to reminiscing about San Francisco before A.I., before Bitcoin, before smartphones, before cell phones, and even before the internet. I know. Hard to believe anyone alive could go back that far.

The first time I lived in San Francisco was 1987. I'd just graduated from college and was living in the Haight with my best friend from the Navy and his obliging roommates, where I slept in a hallway for a few months. Walking around the old hippie neighborhood I thought, "Wow, it's been twenty years since the Summer of Love. I'm walking through ancient history!"

I got a temp job doing customer service at Charles Schwab, where I took phone calls from people who wanted to check up on their accounts. If they were feeling frisky and wanted make a stock trade, I would hand them off to a licensed broker.

That was a great gig, working with an interesting, fun, and beautiful group of fellow temps, but it ended after a couple of months and I took another temp job at Goldman Sachs where I was one of two wire operators. A client would call to make a trade through the OTC desk. I would write down the information and hand the piece of paper to a broker, who would use his direct line to the stock exchange trading floor where another guy would execute the trade.

By today's standards it was all kind of a human Rube Goldberg machine.

Now, anybody can trade stocks from an app on their smartphone, people are paying $80,000 to own a Bitcoin, and it's been sixty years (!) since the Summer of Love. Ain't San Francisco beautiful!

And now, the bugs.

Blow Fly (Lucilla sp.)
(I'll add IDs as I get them from the knowledgeable folks at Bug Guide.)

Some Kind of Bee

Root-maggot Fly

Bumblebee on Blackberry Flower

Resting Cabbage White

Honeybee on Wild Radish

Wolf Spider Carrying Egg Sac

Hover Fly on Poison Hemlock Flowers

Lady Bug on Blackberry Leaf

Fuzzy-faced Spider

Woodlouse Fly (Melanophora roralis)

Blow Fly (Compsomyiops callipes)

Ichneumonid Wasp

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Osprey at Blue Heron Lake

 

Osprey & Raven, Blue Heron Lake

After wrapping up my Friday walk a day early, I went out on the bike to look for insects to photograph. As I was heading home, looking forward to lunch, I passed a woman looking through binoculars as I swung through Blue Heron Lake. I followed her line of sight and was surprised to see a huge bird at the top of the large pine near the nesting herons. My stomach beckoned me toward home, but I pulled over and soon recognized the bird as an osprey. Lunch could wait.

I've heard of folks seeing osprey out by Heron's Head Park, or at Lake Merced, but this is the first I've heard of one being at Blue Heron Lake. Unfortunately, it did not seem to be interested in hunting any of the large koi in the lake. A raven dropped by to check it out and was shouted back when the osprey felt it had gotten too close.

Singing Junco at Oak Woodlands

First time I've seen a black-crowned night heron at Lily Lake.

I'd just finished using a macro lens to photograph insects when this Western Bluebird showed up near its nest box with the morning's prize bug.

There was a mallard family hanging out on the little island at Middle Lake.

The chicks soon entered the water.

I didn't recognize the adults as mallards, taking the Merlin app's word for it.

Both great blue heron adults dropped by while the osprey was in their tree, but soon flew away to hunt after apparently concluding that their nestlings were in no danger.

A hummingbird showed up to drink nectar, diverting attention from the osprey.

And just overhead, a downy woodpecker hammered a euphonious beat on a nearby tree.

A curious raven got the osprey's attention, but flew away after its calls failed to bring any reinforcements.

A crow took the next crack at the osprey, to little effect.

The spider (likely a wolf spider) was carrying its babies on its back (focus on the babies).

Same spider with focus on its head.

This one was still waiting for its egg sac to hatch.

Thin-legged Wolf Spider (Pardosa sp.)

Stiletto Fly (Thereva sp.)

Western Earwig
(Forficula dentata, etymology: "toothed little scissors")

Square-headed Wasp (Larropsis sp.)

Sedgesitter (Platycheirus sp.)

Ladybird Beetle on Wild Radish

This inch-long caterpillar was on Salvia spathacea at Middle Lake.

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Hooded Warbler

 

Hooded Warbler, Laguna Honda Open Space

I'd just finished working on my blog, then comparing a couple of ebikes I'm interested in, and was just about to turn off the computer when I decided to check my Yahoo email to see if any of the folks from Bug Guide had ID'd any of my recently photographed insects. I also noticed an email from the birding group that reported a hooded warbler in the woods near Laguna Honda Hospital.

I looked up the bird online and saw that it was both cool-looking and way out of its usual range. I knew where the trailhead was, having noticed it on the first of March while on my way to Glen Canyon, so I figured this was a good reason to finally check out the trail. I had very low hopes of actually spotting the bird.

As soon as I got there and whipped out my Merlin app to pick out the area's birdsong, I was shocked to see among several of the usual suspects in the ID read-out, the hooded warbler! I soon found some other birders there who confirmed it was singing and had been seen just recently. I soon had a chance to photograph it from quite a distance, but I was stoked anyway.

Oops, nope. Lesser goldfinch.

Just because she was there, I couldn't resist an Allen's hummingbird.

This is what it looks like in there.

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Tiger Swallowtail

 

Tiger Swallowtail & Wild Radish

I've been passing this joyful wild radish patch between the Bison Paddock and North Lake for weeks without seeing any butterfly action, so I was glad to hit the brakes this morning when I spotted a tiger swallowtail feeding on them (and picking up a nice dusting of pollen). If you ever wondered how a butterfly sucks nectar all the way up that long, unfurled proboscis, they do it partly by capillary action and also with a muscular pump inside their head.

Although the butterflies are happy to imbibe wild radish nectar, they do not lay their eggs on these plants, using various tree species instead. I can empathize, as I personally consider the peppery taste of wild radish to be an acquired taste (that I have not acquired). The plants defend themselves against caterpillar herbivory by producing bristly trichomes and toxic mustard oil, and doing so by epigenetic means just as they are being attacked. As a side effect, plants that have been attacked by caterpillars are more likely to produce pink or purple flowers.

Tiger Swallowtail With Unfurled Proboscis

All those blue wrack lines of by-the-wind sailors are gone now, but you can still see a few of the little cnidarians floating around. I watched this group of whimbrels for any sign that they were eating the sailors. They ignored them completely, even when they floated right past the birds.

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TNT to PNP

 

California Towhee in Salvia Patch

This was one of those days where I started out like TNT (cue the AC/DC song) but ended up PNP seven hours later. Pretty Near Pooped. Although I ran into a group of birders looking for a local rarity at Elk Glen Lake, I didn't get to see it myself and was content to watch and photograph a lot of the more usual suspects.

I forgot to post these awesome dreds a couple days ago.

Pork Truck on Noriega Street

A large flock of cedar waxwings was winging it around the Sunset Parkway this morning. A good bunch flew out of this tree as I approached. Just below it was a small, berry-clad cotoneaster bush. I waited in vain for them to come back. This guy was one of a handful of newcomers that only stopped by for a moment.

Hardly any yellow on this young Lesser Goldfinch, but he's singing his heart out just the same (video below).

Preening Allen's Hummingbird Near Mallard Lake

While I was watching the hummingbird, a red-shouldered hawk flew by with a gopher in its talons, looking for a good perch to consume it on. Dissatisfied with this one and the next one, it finally absconded into the tall branches of a eucalyptus.

Still watching the hummingbird to see if it would start feeding on some nearby purple flowers, one of the two singing Wilson's Warblers around the lake popped onto this branch and let loose (video below).

This is the hummingbird I was watching, and when it finally did return to feeding on the purple flowers, it chose a group of them beyond my field of view.

I don't often see female Allen's hummingbirds.

At Elk Glen Lake I contented myself with the likes of red-winged blackbirds while several birders were more single-mindedly seeking a Yellow-throated Warbler that is way out of its usual range.

Here's another Anna's hummingbird working a patch of white ramping fumitory.

I photographed a few mourning doves at Elk Glen Lake, but I liked this one best because of the lichen-crusted branch.

The resident purple finch was devouring seeds at the Salvia patch.

No "nectar robbery" here....

I saw this red-tail as I was biking past Lindley Meadow (near Spreckels Lake in Golden Gate Park) and wondered what it was doing until I noticed the wet feathers (video below).

Pygmy Nuthatch in Bison Paddock

The wasp nest was attacked yet again, leaving little for the remaining hornets to work with.

There was a nice patch of yellow-staining agarics beneath some redwoods at North Lake.

Mama and Papa Bookending the Goslings

I stopped carrying my camera microphone because I almost never actually use it. Today I shot three videos (a lesser goldfinch and Wilson's warbler singing, and a bathing red-tail) and wished I'd had it. 

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