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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Coyote in the Garden

 

Black-crowned Night Heron (Composite), SF Botanical Garden

Yesterday's report of a red-breasted grosbeak in the botanical garden gave me the excuse I needed to go down there this morning. Being the first Sunday of the month, there were at least three birding groups in attendance, and I hope someone got to see the grosbeak. I did not.

I paused on my way to the area where the bird had been seen, curious about many, many crows cawing in apparent alarm. As soon as I turned toward the commotion of corvids I saw a good-looking coyote just standing in the sun. The crows continued to hound the coyote for quite a while. Later on, I was over near the edge of the garden near Lincoln Avenue, looking for the grosbeak, when all the crows finally quit and flew away to the south, passing over my head in two large waves.

I wondered why crows would pester a coyote, being an extremely unlikely nest-robber. But later in the morning as I was heading out to bike home, I was drawn into the relative darkness of the Mesoamerican Cloud Forest by a singing Pacific wren. Almost immediately I encountered a "crime scene" of crow feathers scattered on the dark forest floor. It could have been put there by a hawk or owl, but coyotes will also catch and eat a crow when the opportunity presents itself.

I was torn between trying to follow the coyote and trying to find the grosbeak. The coyote was in no mood to be followed, though, making my decision easier.

Red-shouldered Hawk

This was a little later and might be the same one, though on a different tree. There were two adults and what sounded like a begging fledgling which I was unable to lay eyes on.

I heard the Wilson's warbler singing as I neared the little pond in the Children's Garden area.

He obliged me by belting out his tune a couple more times before moving on.

The red-legged frogs are out again.

Pipevine Swallowtail

I finally found a pipevine swallowtail chrysalis, but it had already hatched.

I wasn't sure what little blue butterfly this was since it never opened its wings. But iNaturalist folks put it in the holarctic azures (Celastrina sp.)

The west coast lady never opened its wings either, but it's a little easier to identify.

I'd hoped to find the grosbeak joining other birds going after nectar in the monkey's hand tree, but I settled for a Steller's jay.

Note the splash of nectar droplets as the jay pulls its head out of the blossom.

I was surprised to see a pair of black-crowned night herons interested in the stagnant pool next to the new plant nursery. They soon realized their mistake and took wing.

I had to dial down my camera's shutter speed to 1/50th sec. (at ISO 12,800) and was pleasantly surprised to get any decent images of the Pacific wren with my heavy Z8 and no tripod.

I set a trail camera in the back yard to find out who's been digging around in one of my planters. I even stuck some aluminum tent stakes in the dirt, pointy-side up, to deter the miscreants. 

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Bird Life

 

Great Blue Heron, Mallard Lake

When the big heron wanted to fly across the pond to a new hunting spot, it took little notice of the young black-crowned night heron that stood in its path. The smaller heron saw what was coming, and for a moment the two birds seemed to collide in a confusion of ruffled feathers as the smaller heron figured out how to get out of the way before returning to its perch among the turtles sunning themselves on the edge of the little island at Mallard Lake.

I'd gone down there after spending some time at the SF Botanical Garden to check up on the nesting downy woodpeckers. All was quiet beneath the nest tree, though. The baby birds had fledged. Earlier in the week I'd watched a Nuttall's woodpecker being followed by its hungry fledgling at Elk Glen Lake. (Minutes earlier I'd spooked a coyote who kept an eye on me as it trotted through tall dry grass toward the cover of nearby brush; a red-shouldered hawk swooped down from a eucalyptus branch to hurry the coyote on its way.)

It's been an interesting week without bringing the compact camera along on my walks and rides. There's a little bit of withdrawal pang there, but I look forward to using my full-frame cameras more exclusively. I don't know if the difference comes across in these blog posts, but it's the richness of detail recorded by the larger sensors that keeps me in love with nature photography.

Black Phoebe, SF Botanical Garden

A little yellow Wilson's warbler darted into the tree in front of me and quickly sprang through the branches before continuing its southward trajectory.

Singing House Finch
(I've been hearing lots of singing purple finches too, lately.)

Hummer in the Nasturtium Patch

Exiting the Patch

Check out the scrub jay's hooked beak.

West Coast Lady Butterfly

Pygmy nuthatches were busy feeding their fledglings in the back of the Children's Garden.

Hummer in the monkey's hand tree (Chiranthodendron sp.).

Allen's Hummingbird at Rest

Buckeye on the Buckwheat

Pinpoint Flying for Manzanita Nectar

A young black-crowned night heron moves to a more comfortable perch.

An adult night heron flies to a new perch.

Full Landing Gear

Graceful Landing

Licking its Chops

Great blue heron moves to a new hunting spot.

A mallard mama takes her kids out for a paddle in the sun.

Another young night heron.

The adult was doing all the hunting, here catching one of several minnows it would nab over the next few minutes.

A blue-eyed darner hovers briefly along the pond's edge.

Preparing to Strike
(Note the young night heron in the background.)

Like the night heron, the blue heron was catching tiny minnows.

A guy I talked with at the botanical garden said a wood duck was still around at Blue Heron Lake, so I dropped by on my way home to look for it. It appears to be a sub-adult, not yet fully feathered out yet in its future wood-duck glory. Certainly not as handsome as last year's model.

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