Good Ole Mt. Tam

* * *

The camera trap hasn't been very busy this last week. I caught a bobcat the first week, a fox the second, and a buck in the third week. That is all. This morning I moved the camera once again to another spot in the same general area, this time along a rarely used trail that has caught both people and coyotes in the past, and where recent raccoon scat can still be found.

This has got to be an old RC Cola can with the red lettering completely faded.

Lichen galaxies.

Haven't seen a bobcat up here in a long time. So I brought my own.

They like it up here.

One of the best bobcat encounters I ever had on Mt. Tam started very near this city-view vantage point, three years ago this week.

Bobcat on Bolinas Ridge, November 18, 2012.

A red-tailed hawk soars above the ridge in an offshore wind.

Once the hawk passed, bird life resumed its busy ways. Here, an acorn woodpecker scores a nut from a canyon live oak (Quercus chrysolepis).

I remain stubbornly hopeful that we'll get some real rain before year's end. I'd like to photograph some nice mushrooms and waterfalls.

* * *

North Side

* * *

Hadn't been out around the north side in a long time.

Hoped to see some mushrooms and waterfalls.

But I forgot. You need rain for that stuff.

I felt like I'd seen Alpine Lake lower, but Cataract Gulch was about as dry as I recall ever seeing it. Consolation: the bigleaf maples were looking pretty good.

I was hoping to find another shot of this dry ravine from November in another year to compare with what I found this morning, but I had to settle for a mid-December shot from last year. 

I enjoyed this small fall nevertheless. Too bad we can't tend a small fall like a small flame to make it bigger.

I hate to annoy a red-tail into flight. But I did it anyway. Just by standing there, mind you. It's not like I yelled and waved my arms or anything.

I checked up on the trail camera and caught just one animal all week again, this time a grey fox. I moved the camera to get a different view of what looks like a promising area nearby. I put my schnoz near the rock the bobcat scent-marked (from last week) but didn't smell anything more than mossy rock.

I didn't feel like going home yet. I wanted to do a little more photography first.

So I looked at the ground and found a few interesting leaves.

* * *

Hint of Rain

* * *

I was still in view of the Rock Spring parking lot when a coyote surprised me as I headed down Cataract Trail this morning. She was on the edge of the meadow to my left and quickly turned around to head back into the woods as I passed, looking over her shoulder at me a couple of times before she disappeared.

Checking up on the trail camera, I found (after viewing the images back home) that I'd only captured one animal all week, back on Thursday morning. But the animal was a bobcat, and he scent-marked a spot, so maybe I'll see more of him.

There was a hint of rain, just barely enough to warrant opening the big golf umbrella I use when hiking with camera gear. I wasn't looking for anything in particular to photograph, so I picked a small area I liked the feel of and just poked around looking for inspiration in the patterns and textures of my immediate surroundings.

As I quietly moved through the woods, a half-dozen wild turkeys crossed my trail. There were lots of acorns on the ground, but I couldn't see for sure what the turkeys were pecking at. Mostly they stopped to preen, then one of them chortled a few little companion calls to a pair of turkeys farther down the hill before they all moved on.

* * *

Still waiting....

* * *

Nice to see some morning clouds in the sky on a day with rain in the forecast.

I set up the trail camera in a new place and hung out in the woods for a spell to get some inspiration.

Still no rain by the time I left, but at least the sunny skies were done.

* * *

October Tam Cam

* * *

Tam Cam - October 2015 from John W. Wall on Vimeo.

Sculptured Beach

* * *

I never got around to either Palomarin Beach or Sculptured Beach during my recently finished year of photographing Point Reyes, but I finally checked out Palomarin over the summer, and with a significant low tide due on Monday the 26th of October, I took a day off work to check out Sculptured Beach, about an hour's walk south of Limantour. The fog was so thick when I left the southernmost parking lot that I memorized landmarks on the beach so I'd be able to find the trail through the dunes on my way back. Even with the fog pretty much burned off by the time I got back, it was still tricky to find the exact spot where the trail comes out.

Santa Maria Creek, not making it to the ocean.

Heermann's, mew and western gulls hung out to bathe in the freshwater creek.

The reef at Sculptured Beach had endlessly interesting forms, and I easily spent four hours exploring a fairly small area, leaving only when my belly insisted I head home for dinner.

* * *

Waiting for Rain

* * *

What sounded like rain in the woods was just the pitter-patter of fog 

dripping from the canopy onto a carpet of dry leaves.

Sometimes a Douglas fir's rat tails show loud and proud. 

Sticky patches of sap pool among the cone's scales.

Hardly a drop of water in this little arroyo seco off the Benstein Trail.

Spotted this crime scene at my feet as I knelt 

to explore a small pool of water in the ravine.

A California Giant Salamander, here a juvenile sporting about three inches 

of length, chills in the bottom of a pool.

An excited mob of acorn woodpeckers and steller's jays called out 

from the vicinity of this coast live oak bristling with nuts, 

stopping only when a cooper's hawk swooped in.

* * *