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| Great Blue Heron, Golden Gate Park |
The power shut down a little after 9 o'clock this morning so PG&E could replace a telephone pole up the block. Seemed like a good time to head down the hill to roam around the Lily Pond and Rhododendron Dell to see what birds might turn up.
Things were getting off to a slow start, but the great blue heron poised on a chunk of tree trunk in the middle of the duckweed-decorated pond presented an opportunity to fire off a frame or two. (By morning's end the tally would rise to 1,127 frames, 95% of which I would delete).
The birding highlight was seeing a male rose-breasted grosbeak, but I'll post those pictures soon, along with a few of our usual suspects, both resident and migrant. (Going through my photos, it looks like I saw the/an ovenbird again too.) For now, I just enjoyed the fact that the great blue heron surprised me by dipping its beak into the water for a drink. After taking a couple sips it fluffed its feathers as if to begin a long preening session, only to soon fly away.
I biked up to Mt. Tam yesterday to swap out cards and batteries on my two trail cams. I'd been worried about one of the cams that was placed just a few inches above a pool of water. The recent rain, which I expected to be but a drizzle, dropped an inch-and-a-half on the mountain, and I could only hope that the cam didn't get drowned. Unfortunately, although it survived the rain, it got knocked over early on, with the lens pointing almost straight up. The cam recorded dozens of shots of a local squirrel climbing in the vines and branches above the pool.
I'd noticed hiking to the cams that the forest floor was still damp and spongy as opposed to dry and crunchy. There was no shortage of water up there, and very little animal activity crossing paths with the second trail cam. Both cams are still up there, and I'll be interested to see if things dry out -- and bring more animals to the creek drainage -- before the rainy season starts for real.
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| Raccoon and Gray Fox (Composite) |
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