Spring Things

 

Nesting Great Blue Herons at Blue Heron Lake

I loved the exuberance of the scene above so much that I'm going to overlook the soft-focus of the (presumably) female's outstretched neck (despite a 1/2000th sec. exposure). She seems jubilant at the arrival of her nestmate with his lowly sprig of eucalyptus. Interestingly, out of all the kinds of sprigs the heron could have chosen, he picked one with medicinal properties.

Humans also do things that are innate, the result of an unconscious life force that we call "instinct." Whatever it is, instinct does not deserve to play second fiddle to consciousness. Instinct drives our autonomic nervous system, our circulatory system, our endocrine system, our immune system, and even the microbiome of life-supporting species with genomes of their own that live inside our bodies.

Consciousness is overrated, probably because we're the ones in charge of the rating system. Scientists are only just beginning to concede that consciousness exists in the minds of at least some other beings. And yet, here we have a whole world of living beings, evolving innately for billions of years -- with or without whatever we think consciousness actually is.

Typical San Francisco Neighborhood

I took a walk this morning through the San Francisco Botanical Garden, and this was my first stop, the wild center of an ornamental peony.

Anna's Hummingbird, California Garden

Western Azalea

Another Anna's hummingbird, fluffing his feathers...

...and preparing for lift-off.

I always think of this beautiful old buckeye (just beginning to flower) as the heart of the California garden.

These Puya chilensis plants weren't blooming last week.

The only common name I see for P. chilensis is "sheep-eating plant." The BBC even reported this as a literal fact: "In the Andes it uses its sharp spines to snare and trap sheep and other animals, which slowly starve to death. The animals then decay at the base of the plant, acting as fertiliser."

But a song sparrow and a Townsend's warbler actually fed on the plant's bountiful nectar with apparent impunity and relish, and this Allen's hummingbird has been perching on one or another of these large, terrestrial bromeliads since they recently flew into town.

A Townsend's warbler swallows the sweet nectar of the dreaded sheep-eating plant.

You know how they have all those signs warning about coyotes? Maybe they should make sure people leave their sheep at home too. (Note the waning moon in the lower left side of the frame.)

Allen's Hummingbird, Children's Garden
(There were native twinberry honeysuckle and hummingbird sage in the area, but I didn't see this or any other hummer going for them.)

Allen's Hummingbird & Twinberry Honeysuckle, Humboldt County, June 2008

California Poppy in Children's Garden

I was homing in on some pretty birdsong to see who it was, and I loved that it turned out to be a Townsend's warbler. Instead of perching on a branch to tweet away, it sang while it foraged. This was in an alder tree around the small pond in the Children's Garden.

Townsend's Warbler Foraging and Singing

I left the SFBG to continue my walk by circumnavigating Blue Heron Lake and was surprised to see this adult black-crowned night heron relaxing on a branch very near the edge of the lake, where a lady was tossing shelled peanuts to a bunch of ravens who were catching them in their beaks.

This robin appeared to be preening after bathing along the lake's edge.

I set the FZ80D on "burst mode" in anticipation of the heron taking off to collect more twigs for the nest.

As I was walking away, the heron surprised me by returning very soon with another twig. I was quite a bit farther away from the nest tree by then, but I couldn't resist snapping one last shot.

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