The annual grasses are turning brown, but Mt. Tamalpais is booming with life. California quail are calling to each other and keeping watch, wild turkeys are nesting, bucks are sporting ever-larger (and still growing) antlers, new wildflowers are blooming, and dragonflies and fence lizards are soaking up the sun. In the woods, fog-drip has been keeping the forest floor moist enough for banana slugs, as well as everyone's favorite woodland plant, poison oak.
The fecundity of the woods kind of blew me away when I was relocating my trail cams and approached a pool I've set up on before. The thick undergrowth showed no sign of the usual animal trails in the vicinity, and I had to gingerly make my way to the pool through abundant poison oak. When I got to the pool I was disappointed to see that winter storms had filled it with gravel. With the pool gone, and the approach so full of poison oak, I decided to set up the cams elsewhere.
When I returned to my bike near the Rock Spring parking lot I watched a tom turkey strutting his stuff in the shade of the beautiful oak near the trail-information board. While I was watching I heard a scuffling of leaves in the nearby woods and discovered a hen turkey scooping out a depression and lying down in it. It didn't look like dirt-bath behavior, so I look forward to checking up on her again to see if she was making a nest.
Guano meets the high tide line on this rock off Baker Beach at low tide. You can just make out the bright red color of an ochre sea star near the rock's base.
Thursday started out sunny in San Francisco, but clouds soon moved in from the north.
The container ship Wan Hai 361, loaded with goods from Taiwan and China, enters San Francisco Bay.
I was surprised to see the broomrape had actually gotten smaller instead of bigger. This is the same cluster I photographed last week. The non-photosynthetic plant is probably getting its nourishment from the green yerba santa growing next to it.
This wild rose with hover fly was right next to some other broomrapes.
White Brodiaea flowering near a seep spring.
Stonecrop on a sunny, south-facing cliff.
Buck near the trail camera location.
This is an overview of the trail cam location, which has been pretty good despite all the annoying wind-activations.
Sow bugs and fungi break down fox poop deposited on a mossy boulder where one of the cams has been set up for a few months.
Eggleaf spurge, also near the trail cam location.
The first yellow mariposa lily of the season? I didn't see any others.
Sluggo in the Moss
The old trail cam site at a pool that has filled with gravel.
Mosaic Darner
Fence Lizard
Poison Oak
Tom Turkey at Rock Spring
Hen Turkey Deciding Whether I'm a Threat or Not (then settling back down to her nest)
A quail keeps watch from a small oak next to the Rock Spring picnic area.
An Acorn Woodpecker rests near the picnic area.
A Jackrabbit passes the scent rock with moss dried out.
Buck Deer in Morning Light
Coyote Strikes a Pose
Bobcat
Same bobcat, three seconds later.
Buck feeding next to the mossy rock, once again green with moisture, that's used as a scent post by foxes and coyotes.
