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| Hooded Merganser at Metson Lake |
Mergansers, or "Mergies," always remind me of the late Bay Area jazz guitarist Calvin Keys (he died last April) and his song, "Mrkgy." In the CD version the song starts with Calvin saying, "Hey Mrkgy," so that's how I know it's pronounced as if it was short for merganser....
I heard or read in the news this morning that eggs are now nine bucks a dozen because of bird flu. I rarely eat eggs anymore, but I guess that's a lot to pay. Years ago I used to get the fanciest eggs sold at Rainbow Grocery for around $12 a dozen, so $9 doesn't seem that bad to me. But I guess restaurant owners and others are complaining about the inflationary prices. Meanwhile, another article mentioned how much of the state is "abnormally dry" or in "moderate drought," and there's no rain in the forecast for a while. In addition to bird flu and drought, we've also got potential deportations coming up for many folks who do a lot of our farm labor. Almost seems like a "perfect storm" brewing up for grocery prices.
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| I wasn't surprised to see this handsome white-crowned sparrow chirping from its lovely perch this morning... |
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| ...but I was a little surprised to see this hermit thrush chupping out in the open (along with a second one that I couldn't see). It's funny to think that the hermit will eventually trade in its lowly chup-chup calls for Pan pipes. |
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| Hermit in the Eucalyptus |
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| This caterpillar was scootching along the sidewalk when it found some delicious dewy grass growing in a crack. I was surprised it was out on such a cold and foggy morning. |
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| I've been attracted to this tree's silhouette out my bedroom window and finally grabbed my camera when a crow landed in there to give it a little added interest. Unfortunately, the crow moved forward before I could get a shot off, slightly obscuring its shape. |
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| I was on the eastern edge of the Bison Paddock when I stopped my bike to check out a couple of woodpecker calls. The woodpeckers were too far away, but then I noticed this hummingbird on a thin rope on the other side of the paddock's chain-link fence right in front of me. The bright orange in the background is from a traffic/safety cone inside the paddock. |
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| I walked up to the fence and stuck my lens through for this shot, and the hummer was gracious enough not to fly away. |
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| When I got back to my bike I remembered to check my mileage. I was at 14,997 when I left home and was glad to see I caught the round number before tipping over to 15,001. I'll have had the ebike for six years in March, so I'm still averaging about 2,500 miles a year, the same as when I rode downtown to work every day. Needless to say, my rides are much more fun now.... |
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| Red-tail Drying Out in the Fog |
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| The red-tail was on a lamp post near the Cliff House, so I wondered whether it was a tagged hawk I've photographed before. A close-up of its legs showed no tags, though. |
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| Seeing the caterpillar in the morning reminded me of the little things I miss while I'm biking around looking for birds, so I stopped at Metson Lake to check out the dried cattail stalks. The fluffy flower heads were interesting, but I didn't see any dragonflies or other insects clinging to leaves or stalks. |
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| However, on the other side of the cattails I heard some splashing that turned out to be a bathing beauty -- a female hooded merganser. |
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| She had the whole lake to herself, unless you include the black phoebe that was hawking from branches sticking out of the water. |
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| Ta-da! |
Brief video clip of the mergie preening after bathing.
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