Latticed Stinkhorn

 

Emerging Latticed Stinkhorn Fungus near Bison Paddock

I stopped to photograph a pair of tree swallows that were hanging out near a nest box that I hadn't seen getting any attention so far this season. As I got off my bike I saw something orange in the sand nearby and knew what it was right off. Nothing else looks like a fruiting of latticed stinkhorn (Clathrus ruber). I especially like this one because it still sported a tattered remnant of the white membrane from which it spawned. I haven't seen them growing in such sandy soil before. Most of the trees in the area are eucalyptus. They seem to come up in spring and late summer. Two previous posts that show it in even more gruesome detail are here and here. [UPDATE: I dropped by two days later (5/9/25) and there was no sign of the fungus ever having been there. It looked like park gardeners might have poured a mound of dirt over it!]

You never know when you're going to run into some cedar waxwings. I hear them much more often than I see them, as they tend to hang out in high tree branches. This morning I heard them while walking along the sidewalk in Golden Gate Heights, but I couldn't see them and figured they were out of the sight in someone's back yard. I kept walking, then turned around again as their singing continued, and that's when I spotted movement in a street tree I had just walked under.

Rhododendrons Near the Disc Golf Course

When I saw them in the sunshine I thought it might be better to photograph them in the fog, but I'm not so sure I was correct.

Rhododendrons On Another Planet

While I was stopped at the rhodies I heard a woodpecker nearby and was lucky to catch this hairy woodpecker before it moved way up the tree and flew away.

Tree Swallow & Yellow Mustard Plants, Seen Through Fence

One of the two swallows flew away when I got right up to the fence to get a cleaner shot, but this guy stuck around, undaunted.

Basket of Weird

Western Gull Behind Cliff House

When I first spotted this juvenile gull, I had a very brief jolt of excitement as I thought it was a four-legged animal. Its head was out of sight as it tried to pull sustenance off the rock, so all I saw was its back.

You can just make out the chick's head poking out from beneath mom's wing feathers. Apparently the other eggs have yet to hatch.

The male pied-billed grebe called out from nearby, and I was finally able to record a little bit of the beautiful sound when mama responded. (I'm just guessing that's mama on the nest, not papa.)

Iris on the Water, Blue Heron Lake

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