Elk & Wildflowers

March has long been one of my favorite months, especially at Pt. Reyes, as wildflowers spring their colors on newly greened hillsides and animals feast in a land restored to plenty. 

Even though I hunker down against the ravages of a single-celled organism that's creating havoc around the world, the possibility of real danger still feels remote.

Yet I know that, along with the greening and colors and renewal of March, it is also the month when ticks stretch their legs from leaf tips to await a passing animal, humans included.

The yin and the yang, the constantly grappling forces of nature, are the intricate mechanisms of the grand adventure of being alive in the world.

So I stretch my bones with a downward dog...

...and savor the awesome beauty of it all.

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Poppies

Sierra Poppies

Diablo Poppies

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Two Bouquets

Seaside Daisies, Tennessee Valley

Dune Wallflowers, Pt. Reyes

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Three Trees

According to the forecast, the rain was going to be relatively mild on Mt. Tam this morning, and since the wind is supposed to come up tomorrow I figured I should head up to swap batteries and SD cards on my trail cameras. 

It was good to find that I could walk silently on the forest floor again, now that everything's wet and spongy, and the moss jackets on the trees were looking bold and sassy.

The woods were kind of spooky along the game trails. Back in the day I could have been stalked by mountain lions or even grizzly bears out here, and maybe some of that memory remains encoded in our neural net to give us a little thrill of fear. I figure it's never a bad idea to just be still and listen, though, and to move deliberately and with unconstrained awareness.

Now, instead of megafauna, we're being stalked by microbes -- and by "we" I mean the whole civilized world. Luckily we still have places like Mt. Tam where it's easy to manage one's social distancing. I encountered only four people on the trail, which was actually a little surprising since I was on human trails for only a short part of the route. 

I carried my big golf umbrella with me -- my portable cave -- and after I'd finished with the trail cams I found a nice place to sit (in my rain pants) and sip hot coffee while listening to the forest music of wind and falling rain.

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Green Reef

Reef, Drake's Bay

Reef Pool, Pt. Reyes

Semipalmated Plover, Pt. Reyes

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March Marsh

Sunrise, Giacomini Wetlands




Pt. Reyes Panorama

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Elk & Owl

Elk with Setting Moon, Pt. Reyes

Trail Monitor, Tennessee Valley

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Bobcats & Wildflowers

The Meadow King, Tennessee Valley

The Iris Field, Pt. Reyes

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The Scent Post

Morning Bobcat
(clip from video)

View Larger at YouTube

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Chaparral Cam

You'd think the neighborhood gray fox contingent would be used to seeing trail cams by now, but I keep moving them around. Surprise! Sorry, buddy. At least there's no real harm. Although I'm not planning to move the cams anymore for a little while, I realize they will take some getting used to.

None of the three trail cams I've had out for the last two weeks caught any buck deer with antlers, so I'm wondering whether everyone's lost their antlers by now, or if they've simply wandered out of the area after making the does hapai. 

The cam doesn't glow with an array of red lights in the daytime and is easier to ignore, although it does still making a faint clicking sound when it fires. Here the fox goes toward the woods at 8:50 a.m.

Only to come back at a trot nearly 10 minutes later.

Hermit thrush.

Yikes! Sorry!

Five days later the fox doesn't seem to mind the cam at all. I can't tell if he's thinking about snagging that flying insect. I set this cam to shoot stills only, although when I reset it on Friday I changed it back to stills and 10-second videos.

I'm wondering if the trail cams will know it's a leap year.

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