City Life

 

Calypte & Echium

I was about to leave the park at Lincoln Way and 5th Avenue this morning when I spotted a hummingbird perched on a thin, twiggy tree stem poised above a patch of blue Pride of Madeira flowers. About 15 or 20 yards from the mayhem of 4,000-pound vehicles traveling 44 feet per second (30 mph), this Anna's hummingbird, weighing in at an impressive two-tenths of an ounce, was going about her business.

Life in the city.

Motor vehicles are around 150,000 times heavier than hummingbirds on average (according to Microsoft Copilot). For a comparison, a 170-pound person would have to be next to a highway of vehicles weighing 25.5 million pounds, or about 64 times the weight of a freight train locomotive. And you'd need a constant stream of them.

The sad fact is, we'd probably get used to it just like the hummers do. 

After you get used to something, you take it for granted and hardly notice it's there anymore. For some people, their whole lives are like that, and it makes them bored and then depressed, wondering what's the point of knocking yourself out. From just a slightly different viewpoint, though, everything can be seen as novel and amazing. Everything is a doorway to having our minds blown, in a "Zen mind, beginner's mind" way.

Female Northern Flicker, Oak Woodlands

The female was digging like mad in the dirt, and I was wondering when she was going to finally pop up with something in her beak, when this male swooped down and scared her away.

I was used to people spooking the flickers when I'd try to photograph them along the path, but I was surprised to be well off the path this morning and enjoying undisturbed views of the birds, when other people started to mosey through. And then (city life again), a guy who'd taken a leak started doing something else, and I knew it was time to get out of there. I know there are gay hookup places here and there, but I hope this morning's scene in the Oak Woodlands was a one-off.

Foxgloves & Forget-Me-Nots

I heard a little bit of tapping near the foxgloves and soon spotted this little female downy woodpecker.

The male was in the same tree, but higher up. They both moved so quickly that I only got these two semi-acceptable shots before they relocated to another nearby tree that was much taller, which put them out of range.

As this noisy red-shouldered hawk swooped into the tree, the other noisy hawk that was already in it, flew away with a beak full of nesting material.

It kindly moved to a new branch with better light.

This is the same hummer as at the top of the post. She only got into this favorable plane of focus in two of the frames as she circled the inflorescence to feed on its nectar.

I decided to check out the Sutro Dunes/Balboa Natural Area again today, and just as I arrived, this red-tailed hawk (not Bando) winged up from the ground with an unidentified small prey item in its talons, which it made quick work of. Here it's scratching an itch.

I thought it was flying away for good, but it landed on another nearby pole.

'Lectro Hawk

The waves were even a bit bigger today, but the wind wasn't as strong. About the same handful of brown pelicans was roosting on Seal Rocks.

The South Lake GBH didn't fly away this time, evidently in a more mellow mood.

I stopped at my usual GBH nest-viewing spot at Blue Heron Lake and was surprised when an almost comical-looking unknown wading bird (an adult green heron?) suddenly fluttered away. Before turning my gaze upward to the GBH nests, I hadn't even thought to look for anything so close to shore. I surveyed my side of the lake to see if the bird had landed close by and instead found this pied-billed grebe apparently on her floating nest of leaves. Another grebe, presumably her mate, was nearby, just out of the frame to the left. I could tell I was making her nervous, so I departed, although I'd love to have seen the little grebe eggs in the nest.

Cloud Timelapse (Today)

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