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| Hot Sky Morning |
When's the last time it was cool enough to sleep under the bed covers? I like warmth, but 85 degrees in the house is too much of a good thing. As this morning's dawn brought another beautiful sky, the "cool" night air had only brought us down to 80 degrees.
Until the last couple of years, I could always count on the fog to come in after a maximum of three really hot days. Hot air inland would suck the fog in, almost as if it were a law of physics. So what happened?! I know the laws of physics didn't change, and I can only wonder if warmer ocean temperatures are to blame.
As I was eating lunch a little while ago, trying to decide whether I should close the west-facing windows before the sun started beating down on them, the curtains suddenly caught a breeze. They haven't budged in days, so I can only hope things are finally about to change for the cooler.
Out for my walk this morning I was surprised by a pair of woodpeckers who flew into a lone tree way down in the Avenues on Noriega Street. One quickly flew across the street, but I managed to grab a couple shots of the other one, first in the tree, then on a nearby telephone pole. I've seen the same species a couple of times recently but haven't been able to find a match for it online. So I went old-school and looked in one of our field guides (Northern California Birds by Herbert Clarke). Bingo!
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| Hot Feathers |
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| Just up from Los Angeles, the HMM Emerald heads for the Port of Oakland. I liked that someone had put chairs down on the beach. They look like the chairs that have popped up in parts of Golden Gate Park. |
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| I was surprised to see a foil surfer this morning. I'm not sure I've seen one at Ocean Beach before. |
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| Starling on Noriega Street |
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| Nuttall's Woodpecker |
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| Nuttall's climbing a telephone pole. |
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| Fast-moving mystery warbler. |
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| I stopped to watch a large group of bushtits that flew into a tree at North Lake, then noticed their frequent followers, the chickadees and Townsend's warblers, as well as some other tiny warbler(s) I couldn't identify. |
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This red-shouldered hawk caught my attention as it flew low across JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park, then landed on a low pine branch. It finally turned its head enough for me to get a catch-light in its eye, then flew to a new branch.
As I prepared to get back on my bike, a visitor asked me if that had been a hawk or a falcon. I told him what it was, and that they were fairly common in the park, and that he might hear one scream. I hoped one would oblige me at that exact moment, but no such luck. Less than a minute later, though, another one screamed beautifully, and I could only wonder if the visitor had heard it too. |
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