True Nature Stories: Red-breasted Sapsucker

Red-breasted Sapsucker, Golden Gate Park

I was walking up a narrow dirt path on the edge of the Oak Woodland and had almost reached the Horseshoe Pit when I flushed a pair of Northern Flickers. I chided myself for walking so fast and being so oblivious of my surroundings. They were no more than ten feet away when they flushed, so I'd probably have gotten a great view if I'd seen them without frightening them away.

The flickers flew up into a nearby pine where they were soon joined by a second pair. While I waited in vain for them to fly back down to the ground, I was consoled by the sapsucker and, shortly afterward, by a Varied Thrush who called out from another tree above and behind me.

The flickers stayed up in their pine, preening and keeping an eye out, before finally flying away toward the Fuchsia Dell. Although my walk took me through the dell, I heard the flickers' calls but never got another glimpse of them.

Pecking for Treasure

I doubted my ears when I first heard the call of this varied thrush. I don't think I've ever seen one in the city before.

While these northern flickers were preening high on the pine branch, at least one of them would constantly have its bill dug into its feathers. Then, just briefly, they both stopped at the same time.

A little bit of sunshine started to come out to enliven the morning. This flicker didn't have an obvious partner, but there were probably half a dozen of them in the same general area.

Something about the filtered morning light, and maybe the pair of Adirondack chairs, got me to finally snap a photo of the giant "LOVE" blocks in front of the Conservatory of Flowers.

More ginkgo leaves, but this time with beaded raindrops.

This is the same spot where last week I photographed a lone plum leaf with the horde of ginkgo leaves (the plum tree is behind me here). Many more leaves have fallen since then.

I always like to see the new year's crop of miner's lettuce getting started.

Mushroom Army

The great egret was hunting from this floating platform of aquatic plants. It appeared to be catching something from time to time, but whatever it was must have been very small. Although park staff have cleared up many of the fallen trees that went down in the December 14th storm (the one where we got a tornado warning), the big tree that toppled into South Lake was not one of them.

Just for the heck of it I also checked out Middle Lake and found a pair of ruby-crowned kinglets foraging and hawking. The one above, without a ruby crown, was the bolder of the two, while the crowned one kept his distance.

It might be that he was staying close to the bathing hole. In these shots, he'd just been chased out of the bath by a Townsend's warbler. (The bath itself was hidden from view.)