Gone Birdin'

 

Red-shouldered Hawk, Golden Gate Park

We started out with an overcast Saturday morning here in San Francisco, but it's all blue skies this afternoon. If the day had started off with blue skies, I wouldn't have gone birding at all. There's something about an overcast day that lends itself to quietly poking around lakes and gardens to observe whatever nature is up to. 

Right now, one of the main things birds are up to is parents getting their fledglings up to speed so they can make it on their own. I saw several young birds following their parents around, but the parents were no longer feeding them.

The photography went well this morning, starting with a brown creeper sighting at Elk Glen Lake. I set out with the heavy Z8 and long lens in the hope of seeing one, but their arrival always seems serendipitous. I never see them when I'm looking for them. They just suddenly show up. 

I didn't realize until today that creepers have a song -- one that I've heard many times without realizing what it was. (On an unrelated note, check out this song I heard on KALW this afternoon, called Bird, by the South Korean group Leenalchi.)

Master of Camouflage, Elk Glen Lake

Pause for the Cause

Brown Creeper (Certhia americana)
(Certhia comes from the Ancient Greek word kerthios, a term used by Aristotle to describe a small, insectivorous bird that lived and scurried around in trees.)

California Towhee (Melozone crissalis)

It was hard to see details with the strong backlight, and I thought this young robin might be a varied thrush (which I've seen only in December and March in SF).

Hawkeye Tree

The collared dove wasn't taking any chances. It was much lower on the tree when it first realized I'd spotted it, and it soon climbed to the top so it could make a quick getaway.

I was hoping the great blue heron would try to pull something bigger than a minnow out of Mallard Lake.

But a minnow is all it got.

Strolling through the SF Botanical Garden I followed the bird calls to this young Nuttall's woodpecker which appeared to be waiting for its mom to bring some food.

Mom showed up empty-handed.

I could tell the red-shouldered hawk had caught something, but whatever it was was out of sight in front of the bird.

I went around the other side and had to deal with the strong backlight. Here the hawk appears to be licking its chops.

But whatever it was eating was proving difficult to swallow.

The hawk struggled to break it into manageable pieces.

Nearby, a pipevine swallowtail took a nectar break at some wild radish plants.

While I was waiting for either a robin to snag a purple berry from the Tree Fuchsia, or an Allen's hummingbird to get some flower nectar from the same tree, a brown creeper caught my eye.

I was able to follow it around for a while, and a highlight was seeing it nab a spider.

Down the Hatch

Creepers like to hunt by spiraling up a tree trunk, sometimes dropping back down after reaching the top. This one was in fairly small trees and mainly worked lateral branches instead of the trunks.

An Allen's hummingbird finally showed itself very briefly at the tree fuchsia.

Fledgling Finch

Instead of gobbling the berry with lightning speed, the robin seemed to savor this one for a few seconds before sending it down the hatch.

The Anna's hummingbird is no fool. She'll sip nectar from an available perch rather than expend a lot of energy on the wing.

Flared Tail Feathers

Allen's Hummingbird & Bottlebrush Flowers

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Town & Country

 

Sonoma Chipmunk, Mt. Tamalpais

My wife wanted to have a lunchtime picnic on Mt. Tam, so I spent some time looking for birds in the SF Botanical Garden earlier in the morning. I had a nice walk but only photographed a few of the usual suspects and didn't expect to post anything to the blog. I guess the chipmunk sort of changed my mind. And the velvet-antlered buck, the acorn woodpeckers, the California quail, and the wood nymph butterfly. As beautiful, and sometimes even bountiful, as San Francisco nature can be, my spirits needed a change of scenery.

Chickadee Foraging on Poison Hemlock

I don't know if the bushtit thought it had caught a caterpillar, but it just turned out to be a thread of plant material.

Bushtits always travel in groups, so if you miss the photo on one of them, you'll probably get another chance.

The robin ate a couple of berries, but nabbed them so quickly that I couldn't get a shot with a berry in its beak.

I settled for this Anna's hummingbird, but I'd wanted to photograph an Allen's hummingbird to show that they are still around. Alas, they were too skittish for me this morning. As I was waiting for one to return to a favorite perch in the Children's Garden, a coyote wandered into view but hurried into cover when it saw me.

I think this is hairy dude is some kind of bee fly.

I was heading out of the garden and just about to put my camera back in the knapsack when a fellow birder pointed out this red-shouldered hawk on a low branch next to the trail.

It was very amenable to being photographed, and we thought it might be a youngster. I hoped mom would show up with a prey item, but junior flew away before it could happen.

It was quite foggy and windy up at Rock Spring. I took a short hike to set out a trail camera, but we drove to a different spot for the picnic.

This velvet-antlered buck greeted us as we carried our gear up to the picnic tables.

The acorn woodpeckers were uncharacteristically quiet today.

It's that time of year when the acorn pantries are just about empty, and before the new season's acorns are ready for collection.

I rarely see chipmunks on Mt. Tam, and even more rarely do I get a chance to photograph one of them.

I saw a dark spot in some bare branches and could only tell it was a quail when I looked through my 840mm lens.

Wood Nymph Resting in Meadow of Dry Grass

Plant Bug in Oxeye Daisy

Back on Tuesday I did my usual SF walk and was surprised to see a banana slug -- and not just one, but quite a few, all in the same small area at the base of Rocky Outcrop Park on 14th Avenue.

I circled the slugs in this phone snap to show where it was. Earlier I'd stood in a different spot and counted 18 banana slugs within my field of view.

I loved the way this velvet grass (Holcus lanatus) at Mallard Lake is compressed on the stem lower down, only to open up in a feathery plume neara the top.

Lots of blackberry flowers promise a berry tasty future....

Flower Longhorn Beetle (Xestoleptura crassipes) in Nasturtium Blossom

Much smaller than a banana slug, this threeband slug (Ambigolimax sp.) was sliding around among nasturium leaves.

And nearby was a tiny garden snail.

At Elk Glen Lake, a brown creeper landed close enough for me to photograph it with a 105mm lens.

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