Shell Creek Road

 

We're heading out for my wife's spring break soon and plan to check out Shell Creek Road on our way to and through Carrizo Plain National Monument. Our destination is farther south, so we're hoping check them both out again on the way back. Work obligations kept me from going down for Carrizo's amazing bloom of 2017, so I'm eager to see the plain and its surrounding mountains in at least some of its potential glory this year. I'm also feeling some excitement building for this year's wildflower season all over the state, especially after so many years of drought. These photos were taken along Shell Creek Road in early April of 2008.

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Easing Into Spring

 

Colors of Spring on Bolinas Ridge

It was so windy when I set out for Mt. Tam yesterday that I considered turning back early -- for about a microsecond. The beauty of an ebike is that you can always crank up the power if the headwinds get too crazy. Also, other than the wind, it was a superbly beautiful day. 

Richardson Bay was full of scaups with their heads ducked into the water much like the proverbial ostriches with their sand. The avocets and black-necked stilts seem to have moved on for the most part, perhaps heading for their nesting grounds. (On my recent trip to Duxbury Reef I saw more American avocets than I'd ever seen in one place on Bolinas Lagoon.)

My first stop on Mt. Tam was one of the portable toilets at the uphill end of the Bootjack parking lot, where I was amazed to see a flock of calypso orchids. These are probably the most accessible calypsos I've ever seen: you wouldn't even have to get out of your car to view them. I'd planned to check for more along West Ridgecrest Road, but a CHP officer was guarding the gate for a film crew which he said had basically bought the road for the day. Even bicyclists were prohibited. If I'd been hiking I'd have been tempted to check it out and see what kind of car commercial it was (since it's usually car commercials going on up there).

I did find a nice patch of Indian warrior (Pedicuaris densiflora) growing on a mossy slope beneath Douglas firs and madrones. After I took a picture I stood up without looking behind me and cleverly placed my back foot on a slim, wet branch. Time slowed down as my foot slid down the branch, allowing me to savor the absurdity of my predicament, and to realize that I was, in fact, going to end the slide by crashing down on my butt. I got right up and thought no more about it until I got home and felt the painful reminder when plopped myself down in a chair.

A flock of band-tailed pigeons flew away as I approached the trail cams, but a red-shafted flicker stuck around to call out to the forest below from the top of a snag. The little seasonal creek was running strong in the aftermath of the week's rain, and the hills were green. The equinox was less than a week ago, and it definitely feels like spring.

Although I didn't see any ships on my ride north over the bridge, I saw two on my way home. The first one was a pusher tug called the Gulf Reliance. Vesselfinder.com lists it as being Alaska flagged, but it's pushing barges here in San Francisco now. What I'd assumed was a single vessel was actually the tug pushing the barge. Close on its heels was a huge container ship, the Singapore-flagged Wan Hai A08, heading to Oakland after its 2,600-mile voyage across the Pacific Ocean from Taipei, Taiwan, and the ports of Hongqiao and Ningbo, China.

Indian Warrior Wildflowers

Madrone Couture No. 1

Madrone Couture No. 2

Red-shafted Flicker

Calypsos in the Duff

Trade Goods Arriving From China

The black spot off the ship's starboard bow is a wing foiler.

Winging it on San Francisco Bay

Tam Cam Video Clips

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Weather Walk

 

Downed Trees Blocking Northbound Sunset Boulevard

Yesterday was a good day to be indoors. I thought the wind might entice me to go out there, but it never got more intense than other storms, at least where I live, so I didn't venture out at all. After the rain passed this morning (for the most part), I took a walk to the beach, then switched to my bike when I got back. 

During my walk I found what I believe to be a Northern Mockingbird egg that had fallen on the ground and busted open. It had been pecked open a bit more by the time I returned, and I noted a scrub jay in the immediate area. Thinking the egg might have blown out of a nest, I looked around but couldn't find one. 

Crossing Sunset Boulevard I noticed some traffic cones forcing a detour at Noriega Street and was surprised to see that a couple of large trees had fallen across the pedestrian path and both northbound lanes. 

The southern part of Ocean Beach looked very wild and uncivilized. It reminded me of Gold Bluffs Beach up in Humboldt County. 

The sun started coming out once I got on my bike, but even with the sun warming my back in Golden Gate Park, a bit of rain blew in from the south and gave me a nice sprinkle. I stopped to check out an especially gorgeous cherry tree across from the bison paddock and was soon joined by a small crowd. 

Even though Ocean Beach has been going back to nature south of Lincoln Way, it looked basically normal along the Esplanade. The waves were huge, and the wind was blowing offshore, but it was all too unruly to entice any surfers.

The yolk spot at the bottom might be where the egg first landed.

Windfall for a Scrub Jay 

Southbound Upper Great Highway at Noriega Street

The Wild Side

Cherry Blossoms

Snow Trees

Protection for the Battered Giant Camera

Still Raining Down That Way

Still Wild Down This Way

Screenshot With Eye of Cyclone Over San Francisco, 3/21/2023

Brief Weather Video

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Calypso in the Woods

 

After spending some time photographing a beautiful old madrone I wandered into the woods to look for calypso orchids. The first ones I found were just buds, then a few more that had just barely opened. A little more searching finally brought me to an exuberant purple perianth. Its beautiful shape and coloration must seem very inviting to a newly awakened bumblebee, but it's all a trick. Apparently, there is no nectar reward. Yet the calypso orchid manages to carry on because enough bees will try their luck, and spread the flowers' pollen, before giving up on this tempting but mocking beauty.

From seeing the world through a macro lens I wandered back across a meadow and through a forest until the scene opened up to the landscape my wife was painting along Bolinas Ridge. I relaxed and took in the view which stretched from groups of hikers winding their way along the Coast Trail below, out to Chimney Rock and the Farallon Islands. Right across a nearby ravine I saw a Douglas fir with numerous cones at the tips of its branches. I was tempted to hike over there, despite the steep descent, to photograph some cones that hadn't yet fallen to the forest floor and were still relatively intact. And then I looked right behind me, where of course there were many cones within easy reach.

Duet in the Duff

The calypso is powered by its perennial underground corm and a single photosynthesizing leaf.

Painting on the Edge

Coast Trail Hikers

Two Cones

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Madrone Abstractions

 

Inside Looking Out

When I was up on Mt. Tam on my bike the other day I scouted a location my wife's been wanting to paint, checking to see if it's green enough yet. She's painted from the same location a couple other times, years when the hills were more golden, but she's had to postpone capturing the scene in green due to drought-challenged conditions. I sent her a phone snap of the scene, and she decided it was finally a go.

On the way to dropping her off with her easel and paints yesterday, a large madrone caught my interest, and after we parked the car I headed back toward the tree with my camera gear. There were a few tiny flowers blooming on the tips of its sparse, copper-colored branches, but I was drawn to the hollowed-out, fire-scarred section of its trunk.

Every angle I set up on felt like an homage to this resilient old tree. The deep beauty of photography comes when we sense a connection with our subject and feel the bond between ourselves and a fellow living being. Something in the core of our own being harmonizes with the life of another, and it feels like respect. It reminds me of the well-known Henry Beston quote, but extended beyond animals to all of life.

Madrone Portal

Waves of Time

Texture & Curves

Ancient Strength

Life On The Rock We Call Earth

Always Reaching Higher

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Early March Tam Cams

 

Turkeys in the Rain

Thursday was a beautiful day for a ride to Mt. Tam. The light fog of early morning burned off to produce a cool and sunny day with hardly any wind. The trail cams survived the atmospheric rivers without mishap and caught some coyotes and turkeys in the rain. 

Biking up to Mt. Tam is kind of an end in itself, but I like having the task of visiting the trail cams to swap out new batteries and memory cards. It's a little too much of a ride to do a longer hike when I get there, but hiking to the cams is just about right. It's good to stretch the legs and to have a little more intimate nature experience than you get riding a bike.

On the way home I stopped to photograph the Ever Lucent, a Singapore-flagged cargo ship that had just passed under the Golden Gate Bridge and now had the city skyline for a backdrop. The ship had recently been in Busan, South Korea, then hit the ports of Qingdao, Hongqiao, and Ningbo, China, before sailing first to Los Angeles, then arriving in here on Thursday. And just as I got home I looked out the back door and saw a bunch of chattering wild parrots resting and preening in my neighbor's 60-year-old oak tree.

One deer, then two: one-second interval between frames.

The Night Coyote Prowls

Growing New Antlers

The Ever Lucent in San Francisco Bay

Red-Masked Parakeets in the Neighborhood

Tam Cam Video Clips

(Unmute to hear the owl.)

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Reef Range

 

Shell Sunrise

When I noticed yesterday that low tide was going to happen around noon today I decided to head out to Duxbury Reef. I figured the tidepools might be murky from storm runoff, but I hoped I might find something interesting due to all the recent rain exposing the reef to so much fresh water.

I arrived early and walked north up the beach to look around the point and maybe see Palomarin Beach, which has been one of my favorite tidepooling locations, but it's another couple of miles up the coast. There appeared to be reef all along the way, though, so I'm not sure there's anything to be gained by hiking all that way for tidepools.

Especially after a big storm, perhaps. The tidepools were indeed murky. But the really strange thing was the lack of biodiversity. There were lots of turban snails, as usual, but not a lot of anything else. I only saw one full-sized sea anemone, and even the sea weed was sparse, maybe due more to the time of year than anything else.

Even though the tidepools were disappointing, it was a beautiful morning to have Agate Beach almost completely to myself. The drive up and over Mt. Tam was enjoyable also, and it looked like just about every embankment that could slide, did slide. Road crews had already been on the job, though, so the road surface was nicely de-mucked.

Shell Sunrise II

Sculpture in the Range

Basin and Range

Slight Rainbow Over Seal Rocks (3/13/23)

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