Between the Storms

 

Hummer in Light Rain

I wasn't sure how today was going pan out, weatherwise, but when the rain eased up around 10 a.m. I decided to go for my Monday walk (the one I didn't take yesterday). I had to take cover from a few brief squalls during the walk, but it was easy enough to find cover under awnings and such. However, I put the kibosh on doing a bike ride when I got home just as the rain and wind started cranking up in a big way.

The straight and narrow way: Ortega Street steps to the beach. The California towhee and hummingbird photos were taken here on the steps.

California Towhee

A woman was walking off the beach when I arrived. Those are her footprints in the sand, receding back toward the Adirondack chair.

Wind-scoured Ocean Beach at Low Tide

Video clips from the beach, with drifting sand.

I hadn't seen a Heermann's gull in a while, so I grabbed this shot as a pair flew by, heading south into the wind.

Small groups of sanderlings were foraging on the beach along with a few gulls. I was going to head north to look for snowy plovers when a rain squall came and sent me scampering for cover. I jogged back across the beach, crossed the Upper Great Highway, and was surprised to see a port-a-potty on the bike path. Good timing in more ways than one, although I did leave to find more commodius shelter as soon as I finished my business.

Pigeons Bracing Against the Wind on Noriega Street

Pigeons in Rows

Nice Day!

And now for something completely different. I made this bobcat photo back in February 2011, catching it in a stretch when it got up after lying in the grass for a long time.

At one point while I was waiting for it to move, I changed the camera settings on my Nikon D300S to photograph the much more brightly lit Tennessee Cove. When I suddenly saw the bobcat get up, I fired off this one frame, only to realize I was way underexposed. In fact, the RAW frame looks black in thumbnail form.

But I kept it anyway, and today I processed it in Lightroom, adding about 3.5 stops of exposure and some color corrections, then running Denoise on it.

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