Bon Tempe Lake

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I guess there are limits to Photoshop's ability to stitch a panorama. I'm not sure if it's a D800 issue, operator error, or something to do with the fact that the clouds moved during the exposures (it was 41 degrees and windy up there on Azalea Hill). I ended up having to do some manual blending, but it worked out okay in the end.

This is a 16x24 crop from the 29x72 panorama.

Did I mention it was 41 degrees up there? And windy? My fingers froze, and I ducked behind rocks to get out of the wind when I wasn't taking pictures. My plan for the morning was to shoot the sunrise from up here at Azalea Hill, then circumambulate Bon Tempe Lake. After I finished with the sunrise (numerous coyotes yipping in the distance helped me forget about the cold), I started walking down the hill toward the lake, only to find that the trail appeared to loop back up the hill. Looking around for a bushwhack route, the way down appeared to involve some very steep descents that I didn't think I'd want to ascend later.

So I hiked back up the hill and photographed this beautifully shaped Coast Live oak as a consolation prize on the way to the Jeep.

Back at the Jeep, surrounded by guys preparing to head out on their mountain bikes, I stowed my gear and drove down to Sky Oaks Road. On the way I spied this handsome buck with gorgeous antlers by the side of the road. I continued a short distance to a parking area across from the Meadow Club golf course and walked back with my camera to photograph him.

Handsome devil.

This is the same buck on a hillside with a California buckeye in the background.

I paid my $8 entrance fee at the robot ranger station (sorry, iron rangers, but progress is progress). I fed eight dollar bills into the machine, one at a time, then drove down to the trailhead where the Sunnyside Trail meets the Shadyside Trail. I decided to hike a clockwise loop around the lake to keep the sun in a better position for photography, so I set out along the Sunnyside Trail.

Souvenir.

Lots of activity in a gorgeous madrone. The acorn woodpeckers were trying to peck holes, western bluebirds were preening in the high, sunnyside branches, and robins were plucking berries.

It's unusual to see a madrone all by itself like this.

A yellow-rumped warbler was eating the tiny bugs that live on the tree. It wasn't interested in the berries at all.

Right next to the madrone was this beautifully spread-out oak, with Bon Tempe Lake (one of the Marin Municipal Water District's reservoirs) in the background. I'd been wondering about the meaning of the lake's name. It's close to "good time" lake, but not quite right. According to the MMWD: "Bon Tempe is an 'Americanization' of the family name Bautunpi. The three Bautunpi brothers ran a ranch and dairy that was later removed to make way for Bon Tempe and Alpine reservoirs. Bon Tempe Reservoir was constructed in 1948."

Same tree, with East Peak in the distance.

The fisherman told a couple of kids who were looking for a fishing spot of their own that he'd seen a bald eagle last week. I later met a trail-runner who said he'd never seen a bald eagle there in 40 years and wondered if the fisherman had actually seen an osprey (which are not uncommon and even nest in the area).

The fisherman is facing Pine Point. Walking the trail that meanders through that section is almost like hiking in the Sierra -- but the pines actually came from the north coast. Again, from the water district's history page (linked above): "Between 1929 and 1934, 24,000 trees were purchased and brought down from the Fort Bragg area to reforest the watershed. Most of the trees were Bishop and Coulter Pine."

In several areas along the shore I found small, quarter-sized clamshells littering the beach. I'd never before seen the Mt. Tam Clam.

I met up with these two beach vultures about half-way through my hike around the lake. They drank a little water and pecked at the ground (to no useful effect that I could see, even with binoculars), and didn't seem too concerned about being close to hikers and fishers. I soon met up with the Shadyside Trail and hiked through redwoods as I watched common mergansers paddle around and dive for fish. I soon closed the loop at Bon Tempe Dam (made of earth fill and rock; only Alpine Dam is concrete), about an hour-and-a-half trip. 

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TamCam Set 4 (Cont'd)

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Set 4 was in such a good spot, with good cover and water, that I let it run for another week. It was another week of no rain, and there were even more deer photos this week than last. The little one-spike deer came to drink several times during the week.

The gray fox popped through, but jumped over the lazy stream so quickly that the camera barely caught it.

Another new species fell prey to the camera trap this week -- raccoons!

Just ambling right down the middle of the creek...

...followed by a pair of junior raccoons.

Several bucks used the watering hole, but I think this fella wins the award for largest antlers.

This deer, obviously quite accustomed to the camera by now, struck a cute pose.

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Venture to the Interior

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Going to sleep last night I told myself I'd head out to Pt. Reyes if I woke up real early, Mt. Tam if I slept until daylight. Waking up at 6 a.m. last Saturday, I'd still have been in the dark. Not so today. It's just as well. The point of going out to the national seashore was to look for subjects to photograph with the 4x5 view camera. I felt a little remiss in my efforts toward the Mt. Tam Blog, though, and didn't want to wait until next week to post my first November pictures. 

I'd planned to drive straight to the parking area and hike down to High Marsh, but the bright red California fuchsia still blooming on a hillside compelled me to stop. Most of the blossoms were happening right next to the road. In general I find it inadvisable to set up my tripod on the edge of a road, so I scurried up the nearest deer trail and found more blossoms half-way up the hill.

I swear I would not have stopped to photograph this tree for the millionth time, but how could I resist with such cool clouds poised right above them. A hopeful sign of changes in the weather. I tried to capture a similar scene with the 4x5, but I didn't have a wide enough lens. 

On my way to High Marsh via Potrero Meadow's colorful azalea leaves, I checked the trail camera and swapped out the memory card but left the camera in place. I'd thought about taking it down to High Marsh but decided to hold off, which I'm glad I did.

This was the first time I'd hiked so far out Mt. Tam's wilder north side in a long time. I even consulted a trail map before I left home to make sure I knew which trails to use. As I hiked out through the lonely woods through a silence broken only by my footfalls, I felt I was on a "venture to the interior," which is the title of a book written by the late Laurens van der Post about hiking into central Africa. I even felt the title's double meaning -- a venture to a psychological interior as much as a physical one (Laurens was a good friend of Carl Jung's). It's just a little bit spooky, in a good way, to hike alone in territory where there's a chance, however slim, that you're not at the top of the food chain.

(The CBE after Van der Post's name on his letterhead, by the way, is for "Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire".)

It took about an hour to mosey down to High Marsh. I was surprised to see that it was completely dry. All the tule stalks were dry as bleached bones too. Ordinarily you could not reach this rock without getting your feet wet. I've seen countless dragonflies swooping and mating on the edges of this marsh in past years (in late September) when there was still plenty of water for them to complete their life cycles. Ditto for chorus frogs. One of the TV weather guys has been reporting that this is the driest calendar year on record (with records going back to the 1800s).

Every now and then I'll come across a crime scene in the woods. A bunch of feathers on the ground. The perp probably a Cooper's hawk or such like. The victim, I don't know. I thought maybe junco, but I couldn't find a match in my copy of Bird Tracks & Sign by Mark Elbroch. I thought that was the end of my search -- until I found an amazing online resource called The Feather Atlas, courtesy of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Maybe my feathers are Varied Thrush -- which might explain why that species seems more jumpy than, say, robins.

I expected a "moire soiree" when I photographed these feathers with my D800E, which doesn't have the anti-aliasing filter that's supposed to prevent moire patterns. They came out fine.

Once the rains return (assuming they do!), I'll go back to this spot and take another picture. All that grass will be under several inches of crystal clear water.

I hiked back up to the Jeep in about 40 minutes, then drove out along Bolinas Ridge, where the sight and smell of smoke from the Cantwell Fire in Lake County was quite strong.

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TamCam Set 4

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This was the original Set 4 location, but as I headed back to the Jeep I found what I figured would be a more interesting place to set up the trail camera...

...down near a small watercourse. It's the same meadow, and probably the same deer would be caught in both camera traps. I'd hoped to get more diverse species coming for a drink, but it was almost all deer, all the time. Because they felt safe here and had come to enjoy a nice drink of water, they often were caught several times by the camera, which fires off three frames, takes a 5-second pause, then fires another three frames. This deer wasn't taking any chances, though, and kept her eyes peeled for danger.

Gray fox! 

In all three frames, the fox is in about the same position, so I don't know if he leaped over the streamlet. It's possible to get a drink both above and below this position, so he might have taken a drink and just passed through. The camera is strapped to an oak which was dropping acorns, though, so maybe the fox was hoping to catch an acorn-eater for breakfast.

Caught this buck leaping.

This little guy needs to eat his Wheaties and grow another spike.

I decided to leave the camera at this spot for another week. There's even less water in the little streamlet now than there was when I first set the trap. I saw a bobcat on the edge of this meadow some years ago and still hope to catch one on camera at this location.

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Practice Run

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The waning crescent moon looked so good as it rose above Twin Peaks around 5:20 this morning that my wife, who'd just gotten up for work, opened the curtains and told me to have a look. I wasn't disappointed. Having taken the day off, I needed a little motivation to roll out from under the warm covers.

I could see the moon just fine without getting out of bed, but I had another motivation to actually get cracking and make the drive up to Mt. Tam.

We're heading up to the Sierra tomorrow to spend a couple of days in Yosemite, where I hope to expose a few sheets of Velvia 100F with a borrowed 4x5 view camera. I haven't touched a view camera since I used one during a brief stint at Brooks Institute of Photography in the early '80s, so I figured I'd get in some practice on Mt. Tam. I fired off a few frames with the D800E while I waited for the sun to come up. I was surprised to see the sun rising so far south of Mt. Diablo. Just last month (link to pix) it was rising north of the mountain.

I used my 300mm rotated to vertical position to knock off a few panoramas.

I'd meant to create one very long panorama, but I must have been too tired and/or caffeinated, because I didn't leave enough overlap in a couple of the frames for Photoshop to stitch it together.

I did manage to expose a couple of sheets during the sunrise -- one pointing into the sun, and another pointing west as in the "Dawn Farallones" shot above. My next stop was to check up on the trail camera and move it to a new location, which is when I disturbed this coyote who'd been casually strolling down the middle of the fire road until it spotted me heading its way. The old camera trap location was in a good spot, but I was eager to set it nearby in a spot closer to a spring before we get any rain (hopefully soon) and there's water everywhere.

After I moved the trail camera I wanted to head out West Ridgecrest to use the 4x5 out on Bolinas Ridge, but I had to wait with eight wild turkeys for the gate to be open. A ranger finally showed up to open the gate, but then closed it behind her! Stuck waiting, I scouted around the parking and area exposed another couple of sheets on some nearby bracken ferns, where I tried a camera movement (lens tilt). Ooooo, getting tricky.

But it was nice to have the turkeys around to keep my attention occupied. I'd never noticed before that the mileage on this sign is posted as "04" instead of just "4".

Turkeys passing the "No Dogs" sign....

I finally got through the gate and set up the 4x5 in a nice spot overlooking Bolinas, with the Farallon Islands in the distance. I exposed a couple of sheets here, then called it a day. Starting with a box of 20 sheets of film, I botched the very first two sheets trying to load them into the film holders (I have five, and each holds two sheets). Today, I snagged the focusing cloth on a catch that released one corner of the bellows from the rear standard, but I didn't notice in time and botched another couple of sheets. So, keeping a positive spin on things, I've got a 60-percent success rate -- which I hope to improve with the next 10 sheets, in Yosemite.

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[ UPDATE ]

I got the first batch of 4x5 slides back today (Nov. 8), and what it's difficult to wrap my brain around when viewing them is that I am viewing huge slides, not small prints. Pretty cool. I don't have any way to digitize them except to photograph them on a light table that I pulled out of storage.

Here's the image from the shoot shown in the last photo of the blog post.

Here's a comparison between a 35mm slide and two 4x5 slides.

I'm looking forward to going back out to try again. I had many more failures than successes with the first batch, but I think I've learned a few things and ought to do better with the next batch. Incidentally, I sent the film via flat-rate Priority Mail to Data-Chrome in Santa Ana on Monday and got the processed film back the same way today. 

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