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| Bison on the Green |
Despite today's sunny warmth, I caught several episodes of "Grrrrr" on my mind, having endured the usual close calls with motorists that pedestrians and cyclists deal with almost every day in San Francisco. I feel like there's a cumuative thing going on with how I feel about it, since I trained myself many years ago to respond to the stress of close calls without getting angry. But that was back when I was bike-commuting to work, pre-pandemic. I wasn't also putting in daily miles as a pedestrian. [UPDATE: The very next day, a man was struck and killed in the crosswalk along one of my weekly walking routes.]
Anyway. I know the "problem" motorists (that minority of the careless, the distracted, the clueless, and worst of all, the aggressive) aren't going to become better drivers anytime soon, so I'll just have to up my stress-response game to better enjoy these beautiful days.
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| A lone lesser goldfinch braved a return to the bathing puddle near the Bison Paddock, where a dozen or so of them had just taken off for some nearby trees after I stopped my bike. |
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| Seal Rocks with a setting, waning moon hanging faintly in the sky. We awoke to a dark and foggy morning, but it all cleared out by around 10:30. |
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| I pulled over when I saw a red-shafted flicker dart from somewhere near this pokeberry bush, wondering if it had been eating the berries. As I waited in vain for it to return, this hermit thrush came to check things out (and did not eat a berry). |
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| The hermit flew from the pokeberry (poisonous to humans) to a dried stalk of poison hemlock (even more poisonous to humans). |
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| Another hemit was in the bowl when I first looked down there, but it took off as soon as I showed myself, making the junco very happy. |
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| Dark-eyed junco fanning its wing feathers in the pool of water. |
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