Warbling Vireo

 

Today's Sunrise Cloudscape

The sky was so dark, gray and monotonous when I woke up that I decided to just lie in bed a while. What's the rush? I'm retired! Eventually the morning slowly began to brighten up, then suddenly transformed into this beautiful cloudscape. 

I photographed a warbling vireo yesterday, my first. The Merlin app has picked up their vocalizations a couple of times on Mt. Tam, but I never got a good look at one. This particular bird stopped on my neighbor's lilly pilly tree as it was passing through, and I happened to have my camera ready. I got one frame off before it flew away.

Warbling Vireo, Golden Gate Heights

Gruff-looking Scrub Jay in my neighbor's oak tree.

I've had deer antlers in my garden for many years without any critters ever taking an interest in them. It's just been in the last year or so that the neighborhood squirrels have been munching on them. I don't begrudge them for doing it (I leave in place the great majority of shed antlers I find in the wild), although the teeth marks do ruin the aesthetic value of the antlers. They are packed with minerals, though, so I can't fault squirrels like this female for taking advantage.

Pygmy nuthatches in a bird cage? No! A new bird feeder has shown up in the neighborhood. Only small birds can reach the seeds. Sorry, squirrels! The plate on the bottom keeps the seeds from falling to the ground where they'd attract rats and other animals, and there's a dome on top to keep the rain out. 

It's a good design for a bird feeder, but I preferred to photograph one of the nuthatches perched in a nearby tree.

The same house also has a hummingbird feeder, but this one is not rat-proof. I have trail-cam video of a rat hanging from our backyard hummingbird feeder. I'd been wondering why it emptied out every night.

Yellow Evening Primrose

On my walk this morning I looked up and saw birds splashing on the roof of a house next to a long set of stairs. When I climbed high enough up the stairs I was able to look back and see the white-crowned sparrows from above.

I noticed that the Chinese chestnut tree at North Lake had dropped lots of spiky fruit today, so I thought I'd check out the nuts to see if they are sweet, but the nuts hadn't really developed. They were flat and looked unappetizing, maybe because there isn't a second tree around for cross-pollination.

A pair of turkey vultures was soaring above Sutro Park late this morning. I second-guessed myself for a minute, thinking they might be hawks, because they weren't doing the tippy-wing thing very much.

The vulture seemed portentious when I spotted this poor cormorant writhing on the beach below the Cliff House. I'd never seen a dying bird in such apparent agony before.

I recorded some video of the cormorant, but be advised that it could be disturbing to watch.

I rode from Cliff House out to the southern end of Sunset Dunes Park and was surprised to see a dead buck deer on the beach at Sloat Boulevard. I wondered if it walked up from the south, or washed up after being carried by currents from the north. It's the first time I've ever seen a dead deer on Ocean Beach.

This is a phone snap of today's sunrise, shot shortly after the FZ80D image at the top of the post.

* * *