Sunday, April 27, 2025

Skyline Spring

 

Tidy Tips, Goldfields, and Baby Blue Eyes on Skyline Boulevard

I could hardly believe my eyes when I spotted a wildflower patch along Skyline Boulevard next to Lake Merced. It wasn't a big patch -- maybe 15 yards long by 2 feet wide -- but it goes to show what's possible here. On the other hand, if it were any bigger, and wasn't situated next to a stream of fast-moving cars, it would probably have been flattened by people taking selfies while lying down in the middle of it.


I biked out to Lake Merced in the hope of seeing Clark's Grebes running across the water in their mating display, following up on a tip from the local birding email group. It was cold and windy this morning, though, and not a grebe in sight. From the North Lake Bridge I managed to snap one frame of a singing marsh wren while watching a dragon boat race.


Boulevard Bouquet


Reaching For The Sun On An Overcast Day


A few groups of whimbrels were foraging along the tide line at Ocean Beach. Before going down there with my camera, I waited for a small group of humans to pass because they were letting their dogs chase the shorebirds away as they went. I figured they would soon chase off the birds up the beach, and that those birds might circle back to where I was. Unfortunately, the group turned around before they reached those birds. I remarked to the group that they were doing a good job of scouring the beach of wildlife with their dogs, to which the only guy who responded to me said, "Good, that's what we're trying to do."


Whimbrel Snags a Mole Crab


Short video clips of foraging whimbrels.


Graffiti canvas at the new Sunset Dunes Park. The coolest art work I saw today was at Lawton Street. A giant rock had been placed on an axis that allowed even a little girl to twirl it around.


I stopped to check out a great blue heron that appeared to be ready to snag a gopher, and indeed it did so very soon, only to snag a second nearby gopher 35 seconds later (according to the timestamps on my photos).


The robin swooped down there just as the heron was heading toward its second gopher. 


The first gopher was caught at 11:35:01, and the second at 11:35:36. 


The one with the bloody beak puts a little distance between itself and a passing human.


And puts a lot more distance between itself and humans with a dog.


These two Nuttall's woodpeckers flew onto a tree right behind the heron, so I moved to get closer and scared the heron away. The woodpeckers soon absconded as well.


The red-shouldered hawk swooped out of the woods around South Lake and glided over MLK Drive into a tree, then soon continued across Lincoln Way to hunt in the Outer Sunset's back yards.


The eagle chicks were hunkered down in a light snow storm yesterday, with the temperature at the time a balmy 31 degrees, not including wind chill.


They came through just fine.

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