True Nature Stories: Hodgepodge

I haven't been out shooting during the last week, instead working on a long-term project on Pt. Reyes that will be similar to the Mt. Tam book you can see on the sidebar. I figured I could get started creating some basic pages by picking out single images that are worth a page of their own. I mocked up the page above for now, but I'd like to replace the two starfish with nudibranchs eventually, assuming I can snag a couple of new species.

I biked up to Mt. Tam today to check on the trail cam, only to see that the pool continues to attract very few visitors compared with other years. I think the pool is a bit more shallow this time, and the "beach" is a bit more steep, so it might not be as attractive to wildlife. But even band-tailed pigeons, which were so prevalent in the past, have been no-shows. The coolest animal to show up was a bat, but the trail cam images and video are not worth posting. A fox ambled past the cam and put his mark on it. I did not notice any peculiar smell when I checked up on it this afternoon. On another scatological note, I almost put my hand in a pile of raccoon poop shortly after whacking it on a stick and drawing just enough blood to attract the attention of very persistent little flies. The goldfinches that last week were all around the Rock Spring water tank were gone. The soundscape had returned to the realm of acorn woodpeckers.

It seemed like it was going to be a day of micro-climates, so I brought along a wind gauge and thermometer to put some numbers on my observations. It was 65 degrees in my living room just before I left at 9:15 a.m., and 63 degrees outside, with a mild 2-3 mph breeze. The fog was wet enough to dust my eyeglasses, and to make a pitter-patter sound on my nylon windbreaker as I rolled down the hill toward the Golden Gate Park entrance at 9th and Irving. Half way across the Golden Gate Bridge it was about 59 degrees with 6-10 mph wind. I'd have guessed the wind was stronger than that, so it was nice to get a measurement. I didn't get above the fog until just below Bootjack, and once I was in the sun the temperature quickly rose to 69, then up to 82 by the time I reached Rock Spring, and finally to a high of 96 in the sun. The wind had come up to 10-12 mph by the time I headed home, with gusts to 17 mph. Again, when I hit those gusts head-on, I'd have guessed they were stronger than that.

And just to earn my hodgepodge license, I'm including a couple of off-beat pix of doctoring a cheese pizza with vegetarian toppings, and a recent discovery of a mochi donut shop on Irving Street near Nomad Cyclery where I was having my ebike tuned up, with a new rear brake rotor, brake pads, chain and cassette, and new fat tires (old = 700x30; new = 700x50) which I thought I'd try out for comfort's sake.

Riding home I passed the float planes near the freeway offramp and remembered when my wife got us a ride in one of them for my 40th birthday -- 24 years ago! Holy cow. I also photographed a clutch of greater yellowlegs from the bike path between Sausalito and the float planes. They were the first I'd seen along there. I'm still waiting for the return of the black-necked stilts that I often saw before I got the FZ-80.