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| A song sparrow sings on a rain-free morning. |
After spending a rainy weekend indoors, I felt the need for a bit more nature than I could hope to experience on my usual Monday walk, so I moved up the calendar and took my Tuesday walk instead. Had I waited for Tuesday, I'd likely be facing another rainy day. I am a creature of habit and actually had to talk myself into making the switch, and I'm glad I won the argument.
As I was doing the monthly bills on Saturday I noticed that my Photoshop & Lightroom subscription had increased by fifty percent, from ten bucks to fifteen bucks a month. I don't recall ever getting a notice from Adobe about the increase -- or of the option to switch to an annual subscription to save sixty bucks over the cost of the monthly sub. I spent half an hour with a robot and a salesperson on Adobe chat to sort it out, but I could simply have logged into Adobe > Manage Account to cancel my monthly sub and immediately purchase an annual sub. The salesperson also reimbursed the January fee I already paid, so the half hour chat went down a little easier.
I also recently had some metal prints made by Bay Photo Lab, paying extra for 2-day shipping to get the prints before the following Friday. They advertise a one-day production turnaround, but my Saturday submission wasn't worked on until Wednesday evening, and my prints arrived the following Saturday. At least the prints looked great. I also recently used Mpix for a metal print that also looked great, but it was a bit more expensive.
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| The Sunset Parkway was almost devoid of birdlife (including no activity at the potential red-tailed hawk nest), so I opened the door to other subjects to satisfy my urge to shutterbug. |
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| Calla Lily Leaf |
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| Unfurling Calla Lily |
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| B&W Conversion |
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| I couldn't resist these first-of-season forget-me-nots.... |
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Cryptic Critter
(Orange-crowned Warbler) |
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| A pair of hooded mergansers was kind enough to paddle past me at very close range at Mallard Lake. |
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| Dynamic Duo |
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| Song Sparrow on Budding Branch |
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| Townie Stretching Out |
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| Cute Perch |
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| Townie At The Baths |
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| Yellow-Rumper, Mallard Lake |
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| A lot of birds were taking advantage of bathing opportunities in a little creek next to Mallard Lake. |
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| Yellow-rumped Warbler, Golden Gate Park |
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| The lighter colors indicate this is a female or juvenile Townie. |
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| Gorget Flasher |
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| I've been hearing pygmy nuthatches way up high in the pines for weeks, and this is the first one I've caught down low in ages. |
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| Townie On A Twig |
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| As I finally tore myself away from Mallard Lake, this dark-eyed junco stood sentinel on a pathside log. |
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| I figure these are latticed stinkhorn mushrooms that were bleached of their usual orange color by a weekend of nearly constant light rain. |
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| There were lots of red-shouldered hawks squawking in the vicinity of Elk Glen Lake this morning. I don't know what the relationship was between these two, but the one on the right took off soon after they joined up. |
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| See Ya |
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| The red-winged blackbirds were twittering a bit more than usual, and were also a bit more visible than usual in the tules around Elk Glen Lake. |
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| "Keer, Keer, Keer!" |
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| Wild Cucumber, Grandview Park |
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| The Singapore-flagged container ship Maersk Algol off Ocean Beach, heading to the Port of Oakland. |
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| View North From Cliff House |
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| The crew of willets was back on the beach near Cliff House. |
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| Willet Scratcher |
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| Beach Rocks #1 |
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| Ocean Beach, San Francisco |
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| Beach Rocks #2 |
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| Some ravens dropped in on the strong winds as I was photographing the willets down below. |
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| One of them landed very close to me, no doubt hoping I had a treat for him. |
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| I wonder if he was croaking a warning to the others to stay away from his human. |
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| Quite a few of the songbirds had discolored feathers on their face, which I figure is dirt that has stuck to their feathers with the help of sap or other sticky plant substances. |
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| The lone snowy egret was back at Metson Lake. Which reminds me that, for the first time in a long time, I didn't see any black-crowned night herons at either North Lake or South Lake. |
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| Turtle Pals on the Fallen Cypress, Metson Lake |
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