Drop in the Ocean

 

Calla Lily

My favorite kind of rain is the kind that falls when I'm content to be indoors anyway, whether lying awake in bed, reading on the couch with the cat asleep at my feet, cooking a pasta dinner, watching the 49ers beat the Packers, and so on. I even kind of enjoyed being in the rain the other night when we came out of the Roxie Theater after watching a 3D Wim Wenders movie about Anselm Kiefer. 

What I don't like is feeling stuck indoors. Yes, we could always go out despite the rain. Just gear up and get wet. But my desperation hasn't gotten to that point yet. Instead I might look for a little indoor photo project such as trying to capture an image of a background object in a water droplet. I tried it with the leaf of a calla lily and a little marigold from our back yard, but didn't get exactly what I wanted. That's okay. There will be more rainy days to try again if I feel like it.

As soon as the rain died out this morning I headed out for a walk to the beach. The weather radar showed another wave of rain heading toward the coast, but it looked like I could get home before it caught me. I ended up spending a little extra time at the beach to watch the antics of a few sanderlings, but it all turned out okay when the wave of rain dissipated before reaching land.

Cool Blues at Ocean Beach

Clearing Storm

Plastics in the Wrack Line

Sand Waves

Pearly Sky

Sanderling vs. Mole Crab

On the Run

Taking a Break

Sanderling Appears to Crow About Its Prize

Warm Droplet

Fancy Studio Setup

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Tam Cam

 

A few recent video clips from the trail cams.

Can you spot the red-tails?

Nice perches atop the Murphy Windmill in Golden Gate Park.

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Forest Tramp

 

Lepiota with Madrone Bark

I know I've had a good tramp in the woods when I emerge with wet and muddy knees, and my hands and clothes are covered with urushiol and tetrodotoxin....

Okay, hopefully not covered with poison oak and newt toxins. But I did think it prudent, as soon as I got home, to get my pants in the hamper and my body in the shower.

I used my post-holiday laziness as an excuse to drive up to Mt. Tam this morning  (instead of biking) to swap out the SD cards in my trail cameras, then spent a couple of hours of poking around the woods with the DSLR. 

The bear's head fungus en route to the trail cams continues to grow and expand its territory with new fruitings. My first blue hound's-tongue flowers of the season were just beginning to bloom on a lone plant along an animal trail. I also surprised several turkeys and a group of deer while trekking quietly over the soggy forest duff. It's only been a week since I last swapped out the trail cam cards, but I moved one of the cams to a new spot and wanted to see if it was catching anything.

New fruiting of bear's head fungus on the same log previously encountered.

Witch's Butter Parasitizing False Turkey Tail

Mossy Fellers

Botanical Still Life
(Hopefully you can view these full-sized instead of on some teensy phone screen.)

Mushroom with Lichen & Madrone Bark

Jack-O-Lantern on a Mossy Trunk

A little Mycena sprouting from the base of a Doug fir tree.

I picture the witch's butter mycelium parasitizing the Stereum hirsutum (tiny bracket fungi in the upper left) and then kind of barfing forth this fat, gelatinous mass of orange reproductive goodness. What a life....

Madrone Couture

This poor little guy was about to duck into a hole when I snatched him up and put him on this log full of poor man's licorice. He remained constantly on the move, and I had to pick him up several times while I tried to change the lens on my DSLR, set a flash exposure, and get the shot before he got away.

I took this phone snap of the log covered with poor man's licorice (Bulgaria inquinans) before I saw the newt. You can see the still-unmolested salamander about half-way up the right side of the frame.

White slime mold sporangia (possibly Didymium spongiosum) sprouting from a wafer of wood that I placed on a mossy tree trunk with a couple of fortuitously placed tiny mushrooms growing on it.

This is a composite of several frames from a video clip of a bobcat crossing the bottom of the frame. Interesting how the color of its fur changed so radically.

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After the Rain

 

Upper Cataract Falls

I'd planned to look for interesting fungi in the area around Laurel Dell on Sunday, but Cataract Creek was going gangbusters after Saturday's rain, so I hiked a little out of my way to check out the falls. The creek that begins up by Rock Spring gets steep just past Laurel Dell, and Upper Cataract Falls is just the first of several waterfalls between this spot and the Alpine Lake reservoir. Although I was tempted to visit them all, I took in just the upper falls before heading back up the trail to look for mushrooms.

On the way I was checking out a few sprouting buckeye nuts when I spotted the biggest Helvella crispa I've ever seen. The thing was huge, and I couldn't quite tell if it was actually several stalks that had more or less fused. Unfortunately, it was weathered with age and not very photogenic (I can relate!).

When I first arrived around 9:30 a.m. I parked above Laurel Dell, pulling in next to the only other car there. I must have been in a rush to get going because I dropped my gloves, and by the time I realized my mistake I was too far down a steep hill to go back. When I returned to the car, I found that someone had stuffed them in my car's door handle (thanks!). Every parking space was filled -- including the "No Parking" space in front of the fire road access gate. The Rock Spring parking area was also overflowing, and many cars were still heading up the mountain as I headed home. It was a good day to be an early bird.

Sinuous Section

Moving Water

Mossy Boulder I
(105mm lens, 3-second exposure)

Mossy Boulder II
(50mm lens, 6/10th second exposure)

Moss Sporangia

Phone snap of some old viscid-capped, red-stemmed boletes (probably Boletus zelleri) and their little orange friends.

Two-headed Puffball

Fairy Fingers

Bay Laurel Leaves

Scarlet Cup Fungus

Cataract Creek Section #1

Cataract Creek Section #2

Cataract Creek Section #3

Cataract Creek Section #4

Here's the same section shot at 1/1000th second. 

Mountain Clouds

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King Tides

 

King High Tide at Muir Beach (7 feet)

King Low Tide at Muir Beach (-1.5 feet)

"The objective eye of science,

striving to see Nature plain,

must finally look at 'subject' and 'object'

and the very Eye that looks.

We discover that all of us

carry within us

caves,

with animals and gods on the walls;

a place of ritual and magic."

--Gary Snyder, Earth House Hold

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Making the Big Bucks

 

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Freaky Fungi

 

Psychedelic concentrics: turkey tails radiate from the wet and weathered wood of a coast live oak.

Okay, I'll admit, all fungi are pretty freaky. But in a world where our own human bellies harbor bacteria that have their own genomes and life cycles, and also have the ability to affect our moods and even make us crazy, then what isn't freaky? 

I like that of all the "mushrooms" I photographed this morning, only one looks like an actual mushroom.

I'm not even sure whether this is a cup fungus or a slime mold. I've never seen it before. [UPDATE: I believe this is Cannonball Fungus (Sphaerobolus stellatus).]

Here's a larger group of them. (As always, you can click on an image to make it bigger.)

Nearby were these Eyelash Cup Fungi, with the mellifluous scientific name of Scutellinia scutellata.

A two-headed toothed jelly fungus.

Smiling coral fungus.

Same set-up (let's call it Still Life with Coral Fungus, Lichen, Mushroom, Polypody, and Bay Laurel Leaves), but pulled back a little. I especially liked the mottled bay laurel leaves, and now that I'm home I wish I'd thought to photograph them seperately.

I've always called these fun guys Stump Bubbles, but I'm embarrassed -- nay, mortified -- to say that I've never actually tried to key them out, although I did kinda sorta think they were Psathyrella sp. I took a phone snap of them to see if my little ID app could handle them, but I wasn't sure if the app was correct -- until I also checked iNaturalist's Mt. Tamalpais collection. So it looks like they are called Common Stump Brittlestem (Psathyrella piluliformis), but I'm going to stick with stump bubbles.

I was surprised to find this bear's head fungus still going strong today. I last saw it  the last time I went up to check on my trail cams on 12/10/23.

Wow, a new year and we get bobcats galore!? I wish. This is a composite of still frames from a video clip.

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