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Kind of an unusual sunrise this morning, with fog covering part of the top of Mt. Tamalpais. I couldn't see East Peak as I drove up from below and hoped my view wouldn't be obliterated. There was also a fog bank out on the far side of the East Bay hills.

I was lucky to find the gate open when I arrived at 6:50 a.m. The fog and clouds were pretty thick, and the best color lasted only a minute or so. By the time the sun reached the horizon it was completely obscured behind clouds.

I picked up the two trail cams that were still on the mountain. I have a new place in mind that I'll check out next week. In the meantime, here's a selection of recent captures.

Two females and one male.

Lots of Gray Fox captures at this location.

Love those Varied Thrush.

Blacktail Deer with goatee.

First Chipmunk capture. Mr. Speedy used this spot several times and I believe he was responsible for quite a few empty frames.

Gray Squirrel(s) triggered the cam many, many times. Occasionally there were two squirrels in the frame, and once there were squirrels and California Quail all foraging around together.

Mouse!

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Sierra Fog

Kind of a cool screen capture showing Lake Tahoe covered with fog.

Different view.

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KitKat

KitKat doesn't know I have to go to work most days. She just comes by whenever she's in the mood. I believe her owner (to the extent she is "owned") lives down the block, but she has been dropping by my back yard for a few years. A bag of Iams kibble lasts several months since I only feed her when we cross paths. Sometimes she's waiting for me in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon. I like to keep a trail cam out back to keep tabs on when she and other backyard denizens come and go.

Sometimes the cam captures my wife, and this time her embroidery handiwork goes perfectly with the ambient scene.

So KitKat's 12:30 visit lasted about an hour, until she gave up. But she came back at 3 o'clock determined to wait it out at the top of the stairs. 

After about 15 minutes she needs a little stretch.

And sometimes the cam catches her making a funny expression on her way to grooming herself. She waited a little more than an hour before finally giving up -- just a few minutes before I finally got home. Too bad cats can't text.

Sometimes I feed her when I get home, then forget to bring the bowl back inside. Other neighborhood cats are onto this fact.

And not all the neighborhood cats are cats.

Here's KitKat trying to catch the early bird special, snoozing a little while she waits, and...

...Reward! To the right is the door to the storage area / laundry room / garage, and where I keep my bike. I always check to see if KitKat is out on the stoop before I head to work in the morning and again when I get home. Sometimes she'll be there almost every day for a while, and other times she doesn't show up for a week or more. 

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New Dawn

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Spooking the Deer

I sort of wondered if any deer were around as I went to check my trail cams this morning. This buck had passed the camera in previous frames, then stopped 

and turned around.

This is about 30 seconds later....

Here he goes past the second camera, with a second buck who hadn't shown up on the first cam.

 

I'd been fiddling with the first cam, so the deer got a couple of minutes ahead of me. 

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Getting There

Click on Any Image to View Larger

Another morning of nature and photography was in order, so I headed out to Bear Valley in Point Reyes.

The low clouds tinged with scarlet were just gray stipples a few moments before this shot. A cavalcade of coyotes cried out at what seemed like the exact moment the fire went into the clouds.

Life, in all its chaotic, fragile and stout incarnations.

This mossy old bay laurel tree had fallen over Bear Valley Creek, making a perfect home for a joyous, green hair-do of polypody ferns.

I headed up the Meadow Trail a ways to see if I could find any interesting fungi to photograph, but had no luck. The most striking thing I found were a couple of huge, excellent hazels. I can only hope the hazel growing in my back yard grows as large, and that after I've moved away, the new renters will let it grow. (This is not a photo of the hazels!)

Among the several grandfather Douglas firs towering in the forest, there are also some excellent, lichen-bearded trees that catch the morning sun along the Bear Valley Trail.

I was driving to Olema Marsh when the phone rang, subduing the music playing on the car's stereo. I didn't recognize the number, so I didn't answer, but it rang a long time and I finally caved. The caller hung up at the same time I answered, but called right back. 

It was a mix-up. The caller was asking for my father, who just passed away last Saturday, at my sister's home in the Chicago area. The caller was a truck driver who was supposed to pick up some medical equipment (probably the oxygen concentrator) that the hospice had folks given us.

My sister was at work, swamped with patients, but like me, my brother-in-law is taking bereavement leave this week, so I was able to text him and my sister and put them in touch with the truck driver. My father, a lifelong journalist born in 1925, would have loved the awesomeness of a cellphone signal being instantaneously relayed to Olema Marsh from Orland Park.

I don't think I've ever "gotten over" the death of a loved one, but I treasure having some time to integrate the loss into my own life history, to let it settle into the wholeness of my own being. Life is an awesome gift, made infinitely more precious by the fact that, someday, it ends. 

My father's spirit rises to meet the sky. A cavalcade of coyotes cries out with yips and howls. 

I kiss my father's forehead knowing I will never see him again. I don't even know if he hears my last words: 

"Good-bye, Dad."

(Obit.)

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Natural Healing

Blue Forest

Living Rocks

Meadow's Edge

Winter Sedges

Redwood Sentinels

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20/20 Vision

The cat crossed the trail so quickly, it was almost out of the frame by the time the video kicked in. 

Hope you're having a happy 20:20 in 2020.

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Airplane Mode

Every now and then, Mt. Tam presents an opportunity, with sun on one side and fog on the other, to photograph glories. When I saw the right conditions on a flight to Chicago last week I looked for the anti-solar point out the window and voila.

Dropping into O'Hare, the deciduous woodlands of winter reminded me of a landscape scarred by fire.

The blue pond on the plain in the back (about a third of the way down from the top edge) has a power plant on its shore. I often wish I could take a GPS reading at various points of interest along a flight path so I could find them on a map later on. 

The Great Plains meet the Rocky Mountains.

Snowy fields cut by a pair of large rivers.

Bay Area view toward Sutter Buttes.

San Mateo Bridge with incoming tide streamers.

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The Little Things

Family Get-together

Ordinarily I'd pull out my diffusing screen to block direct sunlight from striking the subject, but in this case I liked the way the morning light streamed in. I couldn't do a focus-stack (as I did with the first image above) because the sun would move during the time it takes to run the stack. So I stopped down to f/22 and shot a single frame before the sun's angle through the forest changed the scene.

I struck out in my search for mushrooms to bring home for the table. Nothing but a few small oyster mushrooms even tempted me, but I let them be. Even though the pickin's were slim, there at least were a few mushrooms finally cropping up here and there, enough to temp me to break out the Nikon. I felt like I couldn't just go home without taking some time out to set up a couple of macro shots. There's something very satisfying about getting down on the forest floor, in wet-knee country, and exploring the little things to be found.

Deer Mushrooms

Sulfur Tufts

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