Pride of Madeira

 

The Queen of the Patch, Golden Gate Park

I passed a Pride of Madeira bush (Echium candicans) down by the beach that had a hummingbird feeding on its flowers, but it didn't seem like a good place to sit and try to photograph it in peace. Lots of pedestrians and cyclists passing by, and a sedentary homeless guy pontificating about something, so I kept going until I rode past another Echium in full flower. I soon spotted the owner of the bush, a tiny Allen's hummingbird who tolerated bees, sparrows, and a lesser goldfinch, but not other hummingbirds. He also appears to have allowed a female Allen's hummer to sip all the nectar she wants.

One nice thing about the miserable "spring forward" time change is that I'm starting my walk during a cooler part of the morning (7:30 is the new 8:30). Nevertheless, as I passed this view about a block from home I felt a slight foreboding about the hot week ahead.

I walked to the beach on the shaded side of Ortega Street and came across these dewy raccoon tracks on someone's fence.

Later on, I glimpsed a handsome duck as I sped past Lloyd Lake on my bike, so I turned around in case it was a wood duck. It turned out to be a hooded merganser, a fairly common visitor that I nevertheless haven't seen in a while.

I went looking for butterflies in the Balboa Natural Area just south of the Cliff House, but the few I saw eluded capture. The cardinal meadowhawk was more obliging.

What do you brake for? You know those bumper-stickers that say, "I Brake for Wildflowers," or "I Brake for Wildlife." Well, I brake for tapping sounds on trees, especially if the tapping is coming from relatively low on the trunk, where I found this Nuttall's woodpecker.

He might seem too tiny to be regal, but I watched him chase several larger Anna's hummingbirds of his Echium bush.

A white-crowned sparrow nibbled on the plants, but I couldn't tell what it was actually munching on.

A song sparrow used the big bush as a singing perch.

A lesser goldfinch dropped in to check things out.

It might have been looking for seeds. Finding none, it soon flew away without pecking at anything.

Many honeybees and bumblebees were visiting the little flowers, which I often forget are in the Boraginaceae (the forget-me-not family).

I'd been hanging out at the Pride of Madeira plant for quite a while, trying in vain to get a shot of the Allen's hummingbird even perching on the flowers, much less nectaring. 

The male would always fly off to a higher perch in a nearby Monterey cypress, or my quarry would be too hidden by plant material, or moving too fast for me to lock focus on it. Finally, just as I was about to give up and head home for lunch, I got a good view. Initially I assumed this was the same king-of-the-patch male, but the photos clearly show two different birds, this one a female.

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