Upside Downy

 

Downy Woodpecker on Oak at Whiskey Hill, Golden Gate Park

I'd gone through nearly my whole walk through the Oak Woodland, the Fuchsia Dell, and Lily Lake on Friday morning without even taking my camera out of the knapsack, and I had little reason to think there'd be any action on my last leg before leaving the park via Whiskey Hill. However, a bunch of little birds took wing at my approach to an oaky section of the trail (the most birds I'd seen all morning), so I stopped to see what species they were, and whether any would stick around. 

A moment later I noticed a downy woodpecker who seemed to figure the oak it was pecking into presented more upside than taking flight with the juncos and other sparrows. The industrious woodpecker paid me no mind as I photographed it to my heart's content. Despite the sunny day, it was mostly shade on the hill, and I needed ISO 3200 just to get a 1/100th sec. exposure without the flash -- a little slow for a busy woodpecker.

There was a large swell rolling in at Ocean Beach, but not a single surfer was out. The waves might have become enticing at that size with a brisk offshore wind (which might come to pass on Saturday).

When I got home and turned on the radio while fixing lunch, Science Friday was on and they were interviewing a guy who does research on downy woodpeckers! One of the interesting findings is that downies not only peck very fast, but exhale as they strike their target with their bill. The researcher likened the exhalation to grunting, which adds a little extra oomph to the strike. So if the woodpecker pounds the oak at, say, 15 pecks per second, it's sort of hyperventilating since each exhalation is followed by an inhalation.

Note the use of its tail feathers to brace against the tree for stronger pecking.

Woodpecker at Work

I was surprised to see a monarch butterfly near the Bison Paddock and couldn't resist trying to photograph it. I got off my bike and waited expectantly while it almost landed on numerous different plants, only to eventually flitter too far away to chase. But just as I was heading back to my bike it circled back around, bumbling just a few feet from my legs at one point, and finally landing briefly on a nearby bush.

A Brief Meditation

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Bando Brothers

 

Bando the Red-tailed Hawk & (Assumed) Sibling, Balboa Natural Area

After a morning of rain and clouds, the sun finally came back out. I watched it light up the Seal Rock that's farthest out first. I could imagine the pelicans and gulls and cormorants feeling relief at the warmth. Soon enough, even the Cliff House was in full sun.

The tail end of the storm looked interesting as it blew inland.

Meanwhile, just down the road at the Balboa Natural Area, Bando had just made an unsuccessful pounce on something in the dunes and soon took wing, using the strong wind to lift off.

After getting airborne he circled the dune area a couple of times before returning to a hunting perch on top of a streetlight pole.

Bando's sibling, meanwhile, was being accosted by ravens on a different streetlight.

The hawk finally said to heck with it and flew off the pole. One of the ravens immediate grabbed that dangling bit of carcass and took it away in its beak. I wondered if the stringy stuff was leftovers from the yesterday's road-killed gull (of which there was no longer any sign on the road).

The sibling also wheeled in circles over the dune area a couple of times, then took off to the south. I didn't see Bando around anymore either.

Then, just as I was leaving I noticed both hawks had landed on the same light post, apparently finishing the last tidbits of prey (or carrion).

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Bathing Kinglet

 

Red-shouldered Hawk, Sunset Parkway

I'd just been watching a flock of sparrows feeding along the Sunset Parkway, well-camouflaged little brown sprites in the grass, wood chips, and sand. They would dart into the air and lose themselves in nearby bushes as I passed, even though I wasn't the one they should have been worried about. A few steps farther along I noticed the red-shouldered hawk on a branch overlooking the sparrows. The hawk appeared to be finishing off whatever it had recently caught and soon flew across the highway to avoid my stare.

Later, I'd just rounded Elk Glen Lake and was ready to head back up the hill when I spotted a Townsend's warbler about to bathe in a small puddle. It, too, flew away at my approach, so I sat down with a pine tree at my back to wait for it to come back. It finally did come back, but it did a touch-and-go at the puddle as soon as it saw that I was still in the neighborhood. In consolation, a ruby-crowned kinglet was kind enough to drop by and use the puddle a couple of times despite my presence.

As I was biking out to the Cliff House later on, I saw a large road-killed bird in the distance along the Great Highway and my heart sank. It looked like Bando or one of the other local red-tailed hawks. When I got right on top of it, though, I saw that it was a juvenile gull. I was relieved it wasn't one of the hawks I've been watching since before they grew out their adult plumage. Unfortunately, the gull was too squashed for me to move it out of the road for the safety of scavengers.

Mallard Lake Reflections & Bathing Kinglet

Honey Mushrooms, Golden Gate Park

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Mushroom Season on Mt. Tamalpais

 

Panther Amanita, Mt. Tamalpais

Taking a slow stroll down the Cataract Trail from Rock Spring yesterday, my wife and I remarked on all the mushrooms we were seeing (most of which had been picked or kicked over the weekend). We hadn't seen such a profusion in quite a few years, thanks to an early start to the rainy season. I wasn't sure I was going to post anything since I'd only brought my compact camera and didn't feel like my snapshots had done justice to the bounty. 

There was another guy up there photoraphing the mushrooms, and we tipped him off to the panther at the top of this post. He soon passed us on the trail and we didn't run into him again. However, higher up the trail we spotted a chanterelle that had been left in the open (and which hadn't been there on the way down), and I wondered if he had reciprocated. There were quite a few more undisturbed chanterelles growing nearby. Some years I don't see chanterelles at all, and I wondered if they only come out when we get those good October rains.

My wife suggested a good read that I'd like to pass along, called Raising Hare: A Memoir, by Chloe Dalton. The author is great at describing her detailed observations of the tiny hare she adopts from the wild, and which opens her up to a whole world of nature she had not previously appreciated.

There were a couple of patches of witch's hat mushrooms, a species I don't find every year along Cataract Creek.

It was also good to find lots of Mycena groups like these.

A lot of the sulfur tuft mushrooms we found along the trail were old, but some huge logs at Laurel Dell were so chockablock with them that there were old and new ones growing together.

This looks to be a later phase of the Onnia I photographed in early October, when they looked more like bread sticks.

Right around the corner from the Onnia, and part of the same fallen Doug fir, was this beautiful display of swirling wood grain.

Upper Cataract Falls

Most of the canyon maple leaves were off the trees and on the ground.

The newt tried to escape when it saw me but quickly ran into a dead end. It stopped like this, like a perp in a cop show waiting to be frisked.

Sunlight etched its way through the cloud cover to create a dazzling light show on the Pacific Ocean.

From the light-show vantage point I also spotted this group of wild turkeys enjoying a flat patch of ground. I thought they might start a display dance, but they were more interested in pecking for food.

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Hermits in the Pokeberry

 

Pokeberry Peek-a-Boo

I thought the rain was done for the day, so I headed out for a walk down to Blue Heron Lake via the two tile stairways. It was windy and cold, and all the birds were smartly hanging out on the leeward side of Strawberry Hill. 

I stopped at a pokeberry bush to see if there was any action since a hummingbird had been chittering near it, and it made me wonder if the tiny pokeweed flowers actually had nectar. The hummer buzzed off before I could even lay eyes on it, but first one hermit thrush, then another and another, popped out from the ground cover and darted into the berry bush. The hermit above had just snagged and swallowed a berry so fast that I couldn't fire the shutter in time to catch it.

I walked home and was just about to get on the bike when the rain started up again, putting the kibosh on my ride, but at least I hadn't been caught out in the open on foot.

Hermit thrush about to leap into the berry bush.

Hermit in the Berry Garden

I'd been going after a nearby Townsend's warbler when I was distracted by this brown creeper. There was a lot of bird activity on the east side of the hill.

At least three Steller's jays started whooping it up behind me, and I wondered at first if a hawk or owl had flown into a nearby tree. But then I saw this guy with what looks like a peanut and wondered if they were all going ga-ga over the nutritious morsel.

Heron Feet

I wonder if this is one of the pied-billed grebe youngsters I photographed in their nest last spring.

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Yellow-rump Country

 

Yellow-rumped Warbler in Buckeye, SF Botanical Garden

I've been reading another book by the biochemist Nick Lane, called Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life. The principal characters in this drama aren't people, but the cells and organelles such as mitochondria that comprise our bodies. 

The intricacy of life always blows my mind. I think about the warbler in the photo above starting out as a single-celled zygote, invisible to the naked eye, now a completely put-together flying animal that swoops through tree branches and hawks after termites lifting into the sunshine's warmth. 

And of course, the guy making the photograph started out as a single-celled zygote too. Yet somehow, each of us single-celled zygotes knew how to grow ourselves into a bird or a human or any other kind of critter. Yes, DNA plays a role, but think about the intricacy and origin of DNA and your mind gets blown all over again. We do not understand how we got here. 

Yet here we are! Amazing. Such an awesome world, and it's an honor to be a living part of this deepest of all great mysteries.

I was impressed by the volume of resin being dripped out by the cones of this spruce (Picea alcoquiana) in the botanical garden.

This squirrel seemed glad to have some sunshine to sploot out in after all the rain we've been having.

A few golden-crowned sparrows were burrowed into dead leaves, also soaking up the sun.

Golden-crowned Sparrows & Western Bluebird

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Some ravens chased a red-tailed hawk across the sky.

Townsend's Warbler

Wind-ruffled Feathers

Western Bluebird with Grasshopper

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

White-crowned Sparrow

This pipevine swallowtail butterfly was flitting around the part of the garden where it was probably born. The area has since been ripped out and is being replanted, but several pipevine plants were allowed to remain. It'll be interesting to see if there's enough pipevine left to feed caterpillars in the spring.

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