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| Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Elk Glen Lake |
First thing this moring I encountered one of the red-shouldered hawks I recently saw perched on a nearby street lamp. It was impossible to miss after I crossed the street, and I couldn't resist photographing him again with nice morning light and a blue-sky background.
Even more surprising (since I've never seen a hawk perched there before) was finding the hawk still there when I returned almost exactly two hours later (although the hawk must have made a few pounces during the interim). The street lamp is next to a formerly wooded lot whose trees were cut down, and is now an unkempt lot that probably harbors small birds and other prey. (I don't know if the property owner is still waiting for permits to redevelop the lot, but it's been two years since the trees were cut down.)
Anyway, I'd started my walk at a brisk pace because I was looking forward to visiting Elk Glen Lake to look for the yellow-bellied sapsucker that is way out of its usual range. The bird was reported a few days ago, so I was very pleasantly surprised to see that it was still there today. I've birded the oak it was in several times since Elk Glen became part of my walking route, but today was the first time I shared the tree with several other birders. Thankfully someone who knows birds first identified it, or I might have mistaken it for a Nuttall's woodpecker.
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| Red-shouldered Hawk in Golden Gate Heights (8:33 a.m.) |
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| Nice to have some weather moving through. I watched that patch of light climbing Mt. Tamalpais in the background and snapped the photo when it was fully on the grassy, brown hilltops. |
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| Lichen hanging from a street tree on Noriega Street. |
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| I used to try to be the first to notice the plum blossoms each spring, but it's not even the middle of November and I've been seeing them for a couple of weeks already. I guess they're just keeping San Francisco weird. |
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| I photographed one of the red-shouldered hawks of Elk Glen Lake on this same branch not too long ago. |
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| The hawk called out quite often and its call was answered by another hawk in the distance. |
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| While viewing the yellow-bellied sapsucker in its oak, at least two red-shouldered hawks (like the one above) were squawking their brains out behind us, but none of the other birders turned to look at them. Just as I looked, a red-tailed hawk glided out of the area of the fracas, cool as a cucumber. |
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| A Long Way From Home |
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| Welcome to San Francisco |
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| Coming out of the park I walked up Lincoln to 16th Avenue, where I noticed this Waymo car waiting for the truck to move. The truck had its hazard lights on, but I guess Waymos can't "read" a signal like that. At one point, another Waymo turned left off Lincoln and drove by, and it would have been funny if it had somehow robot-signaled the waiting one that it should go around the truck. The Waymo did eventually go around, so maybe it goes by elapsed time. I couldn't tell if the car had a passenger, but it would be a kind of funny bummer to get stuck like that. |
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| There was even more to this crazy contraption outside the borders of the photo. |
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| The blue sky was gone by the time I got back, but the hawk was still there, its feathers being gently ruffled by the wind (10:32 a.m.). |
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