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| Cormorants and Gulls Play it Cool at Seal Rocks |
A neighbor told me yesterday that it was supposed to be 80 degrees in San Francisco today (85 in Oakland), but I had my doubts. As he was telling me this, it was still foggy, and getting foggier. But this morning I woke up to clear blue skies and wondered if my neighbor had been right after all.
The National Weather Service says it should reach 79 degrees this afternoon, but I don't know where they take their measurement. I would bet they don't take it west of Twin Peaks, which is where I live, and where today's high (as of 2:45 p.m.) was 69.1 degrees. (When I took the photo above from the Cliff House at 10:45 this morning, it was 70.7 degrees, but the thermometer had been in my bike bag and exposed to the sun.)
In any case, my neighbor works in Walnut Creek, which has a Heat Advisory in effect for temps expected to reach 96 degrees -- well above the historic average for June. This brings to mind the climate-change joke that in another ten years, 96 degrees in June is going to seem like the good ole days.
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| On the way to the beach I always pass the bison paddock in Golden Gate Park. The bison have been kept out of their main stomping grounds for a while now, and I suspect it's due to the presence of all those white-flowered plants, which are poison hemlock. |
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| This photo of Seal Rocks is from the low tide back on May 29. There are more sea stars around the mussel beds here than I saw recently at Duxbury Reef. |
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| I hadn't seen this before -- a guy with a fishing pole on a beach-cruiser e-bike, probably talking on his cell phone about the one that got away. |
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| This large pool was left by the high tide. |
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| There were a few fishers on the beach in front of Sutro Baths, but this guy had climbed up onto the (usually) offshore rock. This was shot at about the time of this morning's 4.5-foot high tide, so he was in no danger of being stranded for long. But you wouldn't want to be climbing off there around tonight's high tide of 6.8 feet. |
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| Cormorants and Guano on Seal Rocks |
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| It's been foggy for a while, so I hadn't really noticed until this morning how brown the grassy hillsides have gotten on Mt. Tam. |
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| It's a beautiful day at the beach, but even if it does reach 80 degrees downtown, a light jacket might come in handy out here.... |
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