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| Snowy Egret, Richardson Bay |
As I was pedaling out the Mill Valley-Sausalito Pathway this morning I saw a beautiful V-shaped flock of geese flying in front of Mt. Tam's east peak. Unfortunately, there was no way to stop and get my camera out in time to capture the scene. I almost passed up this snowy egret soon after that, but thought what the heck. I was in no rush.
I was glad to see that the black-necked stilts had returned to their favorite feeding area along Coyote Creek, where I also stopped to photograph a great blue heron working the creek's edge, with a kind of urban-apocalyptic junkyard scene in the background.
It was a beautiful September day up around Rock Spring, sunny but nicely cooled by a mild sea breeze. I hiked out to my trail cams to swap out the cards and batteries, and I'm looking forward to downloading that stuff soon.
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| There was just a little bit of morning fog at the Golden Gate Bridge. The fog was actually quite beautiful in the forested area near Andy Goldsworthy's "Spire" sculpture and also farther on through the Presdio. |
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| Long Reflections |
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| Urban-Wildland Interface |
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| Reflections with Black-necked Stilt and Turning Tree Leaves |
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| Looks like he got something here, but I can't make out what it is. |
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| For a while there -- years, that is -- it seemed like I wasn't seeing any turkey vultures above Mt. Tam, and I wondered what happened to them all. I never found out, or heard of anyone else even wondering about it, but it's good to be seeing them again. |
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| Much of the rosinweed has seeded out, but there are still quite a few plants that are flowering like crazy. |
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| I was just standing on the trail, taking in the beautiful day, when I heard rustling in the nearby grass.... I like this shot because it shows the gopher's top and bottom teeth. |
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| At first I thought the gopher was sealing up his hole after he spotted me. He'd pushed up a big plug of dirt that completely covered the entrance, but then he gave another push and shoved all that dirt farther away from the hole. He was still excavating. |
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| There were lots of baby fence lizards skittering around, some even quite a bit smaller than this guy. |
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| But the big guys were out as well, sunning on lichen-crusted rocks. |
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| You can just make out some faint blue in the scales on his back. |
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| Going out the door this morning I figured I'd roll past 14,000 miles on the odometer today. I hit 13,999 near the top of Arguello on the way home. |
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