Tam Cam

 

A pair of American avocets hunts the muddy shallows along Coyote Creek.

I biked up to Mt. Tam on a beautiful spring day -- yesterday! It was my first ride there in the new year, but it did not feel like January as I pedaled in a t-shirt and observed hounds tongue blooming in the woods and white maids showing off along the roadsides.

On the way up I stopped to watch black-necked stilts, greater yellowlegs, and American avocets foraging in the marshy area around Coyote Creek, with mallards and wigeons bobbing along the creek, and numerous snowy egrets and a few great egrets hunting, resting, or preening as the tide came in. I also saw a western grebe working the creek as I rode home, a species I don't think I've seen there before.

Up on the mountain I pulled off the road to hike to my cams and noticed signs of recent turkey-scratching on the ground. Just as I leaned my bike against a tree to lock it up, I caught some movement in the woods: one tom turkey, then a second guy perched just off the ground to get a little higher perspective.

In the woods on the way to the cams I saw that the bear's head log was still producing new fruitings, while the oldest ones were finally decomposing. The forest duff was still moist, but just crunchy enough that I couldn't tread silently. I wished I could have seen the varied thrush before they saw me and flew away. They are one of my favorite birds on Mt. Tam, both for their coloration and the unusual sound of their brief call. Also for their furtiveness, which makes them difficult to photograph.

On the way to Cam 2, my nose picked up the most amazing scent filling the air. I looked around for its source and soon realized it was coming from the flowering bay laurel right in front of me. The scent provided the most enjoyable forest bathing I could remember, including the countless other times I've walked in the scent of bay laurel. I don't know why that tree, or the particular circumstances of the moment, were so special, and I'm curious to see if I'll get a repeat performance on my next visit.

A few video clips from the cams.

Get Your Stilts in a Row

Perched Tom

Proliferating Stalactites of Bear's Head Fungus

I pulled my bike off the road to see if I could track down a pileated woodpecker in the nearby woods when a few deer decided to cross West Ridgecrest.

Pileated Woodpecker Working on a Madrone

Slicing Through the Mud

Keeping an Eye Out

Probing the Depths

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North Side Tidbits

 

Gauzy Cascade on Mt. Tamalpais

I jumped the gun yesterday and posted before I'd checked out the FZ80 shots, which, along with some slo-mo from the smartphone, turned out to be arguably worth posting. 

A few seconds of slow-motion cascades.

These cherry-tipped Lipstick Powderhorn lichens (Cladonia macilenta) were situated so close to a small oak seedling near the Lily Pond that I couldn't get either my DSLR or FZ80 in position to photograph them. Luckily, the much more svelte smartphone slipped right in there.

This red-tailed hawk first drew my attention when it was on the ground on the west-facing side of Bolinas Ridge. It made a very brief sound, and when I first saw it hunched on the hillside I thought for just a split second that I'd lucked into a bobcat sighting. The hawk took off and coasted over the ridge and out of sight, but I climbed a small hill and saw that it had landed at the top of a Douglas fir. I'd hoped to capture it taking off, but was disappointed when it flew the "wrong" way to escape my prying lens.

I was checking out a spot along Bolinas Ridge where I've previously photographed interesting mushrooms as well as early-blooming hound's tongue, but the whole area had been drastically changed by chainsaw crews who cut many of the smaller Douglas firs and whatnot. As I was poking around the edge of the cut area I discovered this banana slug who'd been feasting on a large Russula.
[UPDATE: I was up there four days later and checked this spot to see what might be left. There was no sign of the mushroom other than a half-dollar-sized shallow hole with some white mycelium in it.]

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Tam's North Side

 

Nearing the bottom of the gorge, Cataract Creek closes in on Alpine Lake.

I hadn't been around to the north side of Mt. Tam for a long time, so I thought I'd go have a look this morning. Everything was pretty much as I expected, except that Fairfax-Bolinas Road has been degraded quite a bit by winter storms. There are now three places where the usual two lanes are squeezed down to one.

My first stop was the Lily Pond, which was soggy and boggy from all the wonderful rain we've been getting. I was a little surprised that the fetid adder's tongue was just beginning to come on. I've already seen it starting higher up the mountain and figured the Lily Pond plants would have matured more at their lower elevation.

Next stop was Cataract Creek, which of course was going gangbusters. Alpine Lake reservoir was about as full as it could be. Despite my stop at the Lily Pond I arrived at the trailhead with just a couple of cars already parked there. I'd prepared myself for more of a crowd. I'd also been prepared for bright sunshine but was glad some fog had built up over the canyon to keep the light more even. On my way back down the trail, I passed a few hikers going up in ones and twos, then a large group near the bottom. Lots of cars were parked along the road by then (around 10 a.m.?), almost like a weekend.

When I reached the top of the drive at Bolinas Ridge, my phone started pinging with messages. Both my wife and PG&E were letting me know there was a power outage back at home. I was glad to get the news, and instead of heading right home I poked around a little bit to take in the views and scour the hillsides for wildlife. Although I saw deer and a red-tailed hawk, I left slightly disappointed that no bobcats showed themselves. 

In my rush to get out this morning (making my own coffee and breakfast, then cleaning the cat's litter box and getting her fed so we could administer a twice-daily antibiotic to treat a recent infection) I forgot to bring replacement SD cards for my trail cams, so I couldn't stop to swap them out. I was half-way to Mt. Tam before I realized my mistake. 

The power was still off when I got home, but it suddenly came back on after about 15 minutes. Had it remained out until 8 p.m. (one of PG&E's estimates), I'd be reading a book right now instead of knocking out a blog post.

Fairfax-Bolinas Road, near the Lily Pond.

Roadside Forest

Several patches of this nice little club fungus (Clavulinopsis fusiformis) were growing along the trail down to the Lily Pond.

Unfortunately, it looked quite beaten up by exposure to all the rain.

Lily Pond

Lily Pads
(I heard only one chorus frog in the area and was disappointed that none were hanging out on the lily pads.)

This is about the size of all the fetid adder's tongue plants I found around the Lily Pond this morning. The leaves will get much bigger, and more flowers will likely sprout within each plant.

Fetid Adder's Tongue

Here's a close crop of the flower from the previous image.

Sprouting from a Douglas fir cone, the majestic Ear Pick Fungus....

A closer crop of Auriscalpium vulgare.

Red Waxy Cap
(Hygrocybe punicea)

Although there are numerous waterfalls in the canyon, this one probably makes it to Instagram quite a bit more than the others.

This is the same falls, shot with a 105mm lens.

Note the nurse log straddling the creek and supporting a growing redwood tree. I first photographed it in March 2000, and even then it looked like the nurse log wasn't going to be able to support all that weight much longer. Where are the living tree's roots?!

Billowing Fog Over Bolinas Ridge

* * *

Out and About

 

Golden Gate Bison

The bison paddock in Golden Gate Park is looking good with new green grass coming in. The color makes a nice backdrop for the chocolate-brown bison. The beautiful texture of their fur seems so inviting, I imagine giving them a little skritch. 

Both on my walk and bike ride today I saw and heard several red-shouldered hawks screeching and careening across the sky. I stopped to photograph one of them while it was in a beautiful ray of light (on an otherwise mostly foggy day around my side of the city). Unfortunately, it took off before I could stop and get my camera out of the bike bag. However, I noticed it had a branch in its beak as it flew to a nest a little higher in the Monterey pine.

This was near the former Stow Lake, now known as Blue Heron Lake. I've been noticing great blue herons already stationed in the nest trees there for a couple of weeks.

While on my walk earlier in the morning I noticed several dead individuals of devil's coach-horse beetle on the sidewalk along Sunset Boulevard. I wondered if they got flooded out of their burrows by all the rain and suffered the bad luck of being stepped on while they were out and about. 

A little farther along I stepped onto the greenbelt to check out a mushroom and noticed two healthy beetles, one following the other, heading toward them. Maybe they were hoping to eat whatever worms or slugs might be on the fungi. I stopped to watch for a while but was disappointed when they seemed to ignore the mushrooms in favor of climbing through the greenery on some inscrutable mission. 

Bison Portrait

Great Blue Heron in Nest Tree at Blue Heron Lake

Devil's Coach-Horse Beetles

Beetle Exploring the Urban Jungle

* * *

Drop in the Ocean

 

Calla Lily

My favorite kind of rain is the kind that falls when I'm content to be indoors anyway, whether lying awake in bed, reading on the couch with the cat asleep at my feet, cooking a pasta dinner, watching the 49ers beat the Packers, and so on. I even kind of enjoyed being in the rain the other night when we came out of the Roxie Theater after watching a 3D Wim Wenders movie about Anselm Kiefer. 

What I don't like is feeling stuck indoors. Yes, we could always go out despite the rain. Just gear up and get wet. But my desperation hasn't gotten to that point yet. Instead I might look for a little indoor photo project such as trying to capture an image of a background object in a water droplet. I tried it with the leaf of a calla lily and a little marigold from our back yard, but didn't get exactly what I wanted. That's okay. There will be more rainy days to try again if I feel like it.

As soon as the rain died out this morning I headed out for a walk to the beach. The weather radar showed another wave of rain heading toward the coast, but it looked like I could get home before it caught me. I ended up spending a little extra time at the beach to watch the antics of a few sanderlings, but it all turned out okay when the wave of rain dissipated before reaching land.

Cool Blues at Ocean Beach

Clearing Storm

Plastics in the Wrack Line

Sand Waves

Pearly Sky

Sanderling vs. Mole Crab

On the Run

Taking a Break

Sanderling Appears to Crow About Its Prize

Warm Droplet

Fancy Studio Setup

* * *

Tam Cam

 

A few recent video clips from the trail cams.

Can you spot the red-tails?

Nice perches atop the Murphy Windmill in Golden Gate Park.

* * *

Forest Tramp

 

Lepiota with Madrone Bark

I know I've had a good tramp in the woods when I emerge with wet and muddy knees, and my hands and clothes are covered with urushiol and tetrodotoxin....

Okay, hopefully not covered with poison oak and newt toxins. But I did think it prudent, as soon as I got home, to get my pants in the hamper and my body in the shower.

I used my post-holiday laziness as an excuse to drive up to Mt. Tam this morning  (instead of biking) to swap out the SD cards in my trail cameras, then spent a couple of hours of poking around the woods with the DSLR. 

The bear's head fungus en route to the trail cams continues to grow and expand its territory with new fruitings. My first blue hound's-tongue flowers of the season were just beginning to bloom on a lone plant along an animal trail. I also surprised several turkeys and a group of deer while trekking quietly over the soggy forest duff. It's only been a week since I last swapped out the trail cam cards, but I moved one of the cams to a new spot and wanted to see if it was catching anything.

New fruiting of bear's head fungus on the same log previously encountered.

Witch's Butter Parasitizing False Turkey Tail

Mossy Fellers

Botanical Still Life
(Hopefully you can view these full-sized instead of on some teensy phone screen.)

Mushroom with Lichen & Madrone Bark

Jack-O-Lantern on a Mossy Trunk

A little Mycena sprouting from the base of a Doug fir tree.

I picture the witch's butter mycelium parasitizing the Stereum hirsutum (tiny bracket fungi in the upper left) and then kind of barfing forth this fat, gelatinous mass of orange reproductive goodness. What a life....

Madrone Couture

This poor little guy was about to duck into a hole when I snatched him up and put him on this log full of poor man's licorice. He remained constantly on the move, and I had to pick him up several times while I tried to change the lens on my DSLR, set a flash exposure, and get the shot before he got away.

I took this phone snap of the log covered with poor man's licorice (Bulgaria inquinans) before I saw the newt. You can see the still-unmolested salamander about half-way up the right side of the frame.

White slime mold sporangia (possibly Didymium spongiosum) sprouting from a wafer of wood that I placed on a mossy tree trunk with a couple of fortuitously placed tiny mushrooms growing on it.

This is a composite of several frames from a video clip of a bobcat crossing the bottom of the frame. Interesting how the color of its fur changed so radically.

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