Monsoon Season

Sunset with Monsoon Clouds

San Francisco was right along the edge of a monsoon cloud-train yesterday. The train blew out the fog and put on an awe-inspiring show. My wife and I were in the middle of watching an excellent documentary, Georgia O'Keeffe: The Brightness of Light, as the time for sunset approached. We put the show on hold as I biked over to Grandview Park with my camera, feeling inspired by O'Keeffe's spirit of relating to light and landscape.

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Noise Makers

 

Red-masked Parakeet in Live Oak, Golden Gate Heights

I was out back enjoying some rare sunshine and contemplating my neighbor's oak tree when a flock of noisy parrots descended into its branches. My neighbor, Jake Sigg, planted the tree from an acorn nearly sixty years ago, when he was a young gardener in Golden Gate Park. Jake passed away last month, several days after celebrating his 99th birthday. Hopefully his oak will enjoy such a long life, and more.

In his brief autobiography, Notes on a Long Life, Jake wrote, "The principal focus of my life in retirement is the protection of natural ecosystems. When I was the gardener for the California native section of Strybing Arboretum I wasn't aware of the value of native plants.... I now rail at what I call our biologically illiterate society, which included me." Jake joined the California Native Plant Society, became president of the local chapter, and made righteous noise on behalf of natural ecosystems for the rest of his life.

Jake's oak towers above a yard filled with smaller native plants such as coffeeberry, sea spray, cow parsnip, red-flowering currant, wild cucumber, and pipevine, but also includes a couple of ornamentals.

Parakeets dig it, as do crows, squirrels, hummingbirds, juncos, chickadees, bushtits, Townsend's warblers, and the occasional red-shouldered and cooper's hawks.

One of the ornamentals is a fuchsia vine that attracts hummingbirds.

The parakeets can make a lot of noise as they keep in touch with far-flung members of the neighborhood flock. When near and far cohorts engage in call-and-response, I can only wonder what they are communicating.

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Going to the Sun

 

Pine Siskin Drinking at Rock Spring Water Tank, Mt. Tamalpais

Okay, multiple days of cold and fog finally got to me. In addition to getting some sun on my face this morning, I also wanted to do some photography with the full-frame cameras, so I drove rather than biked up to Mt. Tam. Inspector Brocken wasn't around, so I just kind of poked around the Rock Spring area after swapping SD cards in my trail cameras.

Slippin' Siskin

Contemplative Siskins

Female (or Young Male) Lazuli Bunting

I can't remember the last time I saw turkey vultures perched on anything on the upper part of the mountain. There were four altogether. The acorn woodpeckers seemed to take them in stride, and a pair of ravens landed on a nearby branch to check them out for a couple of minutes before continuing on their way.

Sun Bums

Nearby, some acorn woodpeckers were hawking after insects.

They'd take off, try to snag their prey (which I couldn't see at all), then return to the branch, usually empty-handed as far as I could tell.

This one came back and seemed to be choking on whatever he'd caught. That's his tongue sticking out.

Portrait of a Chipmunk

The little fella let me get pretty close. Suddenly though, even though I didn't move, it shot into cover. I recently saw an Instagram video of a great blue heron sneaking up on and snagging a chipmunk. 

Although Ebird shows lots of spotted towhee sightings within San Francisco, I have yet to see one in the city.

They have a very recognizable territorial call, so I'm surprised I have yet to see one. I'll have to try a little harder. Although they have been seen in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio seems to be a hot spot for them. 

If you recognize the sign from a recent post, you might know what comes next.

Bugs in the oxeye daisies, that's what. Judging by all the scattered moth fur on the petals, I suspect the moth didn't go down easy for the little crab spider.

Mating Stink Bugs

Coyote Mint

Gumweed

Rosin Weed

Skipper Nectaring on Gumweed

Propertius Duskywing Nectaring on Rosin Weed

Even honeybees got in on the rosin weed. I'm surprised critters don't get all gummed up by the rosin.

It's not that often I get a catchlight in a lizard's eye. This one is perched in a serpentine area.

Heading down Pantoll Road I stopped the car after seeing a few mama quail running across the road with their impossibly cute, tiny chicks comically following in a line. I hung around for a while but never saw the quail again.

But the Steller's jays seemed to be up to something, and I soon found out what it was.

They had a hungry youngster to feed.

Seeing this camera trap shot of a passing bobcat triggered my biggest groan of the day. I have two trail cameras at this location. The other one should have caught this bobcat from the other side, and in a much wider view. But for some still-unknown reason, that other camera didn't have any shots on it. I can only imagine I accidentally left it set on "Setup" instead of switching it to "On." Argh.

First time I ever saw a robin snag a salamander.

Another ugh moment as a gray fox approached this cam but was not picked up by the non-working cam.

The bobcat was out of the frame after triggering the still photo, but you can still see him a second or two later in the upper right corner of the video frame (and also hear a spotted towhee scolding the cat).

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Nuts for Nuttall's

 

Nuttall's Woodpecker, SF Botanical Garden

I'm still trying to remember how to distinguish among the calls of the Nuttall's vs. downy or hairy woodpeckers. Like most birds, all three are more often heard than seen, but today I got to hear Nuttall's and downy woodpeckers in the same place, one after the other, and it was easy to tell which was which. The Nuttall's voice was stronger. Of course, it might not be so for the hairy woodpecker.

Anyway, it's nice to have a garden with so many yardbirds. The garden attached to our duplex is tiny but adequate when I want to be outdoors for 15-20 minutes, but if I want to be out for a few hours I can always drop down the hill to the SF Botanical Garden.

I brought my camera without any expectation of actually using it, but I soon got pulled into bird photography mode by a little Hutton's vireo that was challenging to capture as it darted about, high in a leafy tree canopy. I was about to head home for lunch after spending a pleasant couple of hours walking around and observing mostly hummingbirds, when a Nuttall's woodpecker flew into a nearby tree. I was able to follow it around the southeast corner of the garden for about an hour before I finally did head home.

Hutton's Vireo With Prize

The central part of the California Garden is very colorful right now.

I watched this junior male Anna's hummingbird for quite a while, hoping he would drop into the sticky monkey flowers right below him. He was in no rush to go anywhere, though, and then he began a long process of preening his feathers. When he finally did take off, he rocketed over the monkey flowers and clear out of sight.

I'd hoped to photograph an Allen's hummingbird that I saw in this tree with red pea-family flowers (weeping boer-bean, Schotia brachypetala), but the boss Anna's chased off all interlopers.

I finally did photograph an Allen's hummingbird, getting off a short burst that netted just one good frame before it zipped away.

Several pygmy nuthatches dropped by the little pond in the Children's Garden.

I thought they were going to bathe or come down for a drink, but only one of them did so.

It's not easy because the water is deep. This guy appeared to have a little bit of difficulty getting back out of the water.

And he looked a lot wetter than a typical bather.

I was glad to find a couple of red-legged frogs in the pond. Last time I came by I couldn't spot any.

It must be pygmy nuthatch season. It seems like I'll see them all the time for a short while before they become scarce again.

I didn't see a single butterfly of any kind. Too foggy maybe? There were still a few pipevine swallowtails eating the dregs of pipevine plants near the reservoir.

I loved the eyebrows on this junior house finch.

There were plenty of adults around too.

Male Nuttall's Woodpecker

Male Downy Woodpecker

Nuttall's using his tongue.

I couldn't tell what this big guy was. It was about the size of a California towhee. Turns out it's a brown-headed cowbird. I still remember the first time I saw a fledgling cowbird that dwarfed the dark-eyed junco that was feeding it. Cowbirds are nest parasites.

I kept hearing a junco belting out its song, but I couldn't see where it was. Then I realized it was practically at my feet.

Downy Woodpecker Checking Cypress Cones

I was trying to get a bead on a pair of cute lesser goldfinches on a branch above me when this hummer swooped in and frightened them away.

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