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| Garden Variety Fall Color, Forest Hill |
The fall color has developed quite a bit since last week. This might be the peak for this little stretch of sidewalk....
As I biked out of Golden Gate Park and turned north onto the Great Highway this morning, the first thing I noticed was a column of smoke emanating from Mt. Tamalpais. It looked too big to be a prescribed burn, but that's exactly what it was (my wife found the notice on Twitter).
Checking it out from the Cliff House, I was surprised to spook up a yellow-rumped warbler. It fluttered away, but not very far, so I tried to see what it was up to from a respectful distance. It was hawking -- darting out from shrubbery, or sometimes the cliff face, to snag insects on the wing. I wondered if it was catching those slightly annoying little flies that often seem to hang out there.
High tide has drifted off to a new time of day, leaving the Cliff House tidepool rock available. Instead of black oystercatchers bathing in it, there was a group of black turnstones, which are even more camouflaged than the oystercatchers from above (no showy orange beaks either).
Back at home I found a caterpillar hanging from the surface of our exterior hallway. I put it up on iNaturalist and they came up with "brush-footed butterflies."
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| Fire on the Mountain |
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| Yellow-rumped Warbler, Cliff House |
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| Leaping into Flight |
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| Black Turnstone at Cliff House Tidepool |
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| Bathing Turnstones |
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| Splash Chaos |
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| Possible brush-footed butterfly caterpillar. |
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