In The Neighborhood

 

Red Shouldered Hawk Sounding Off

I took a few hours between storms to enjoy a stroll around Strybing Arboretum in Golden Gate Park. It was so sunny this morning that it was hard to believe a dramatic change is in store. It's about noon now, and the wind is gusting pretty strong, about 17 mph, with clouds blowing in from the west.

Lone Magnolia Blossom

More Magnolia

Forget-Me-Not

Magnolia Bud

Silk Tassel Bush

This red-shouldered hawk swooped onto the branch with a nice bunch of salad greens in its talons. The main course was somewhere inside the bunch.

The hawk eventually tossed away the greens.

A bunch of golden-crowned sparrows were munching on willow pollen back in the Children's Garden.

I thought this was some kind of super-interesting new bird I'd never seen before, and I only managed to catch this one sharp image as it flittered around near the surface of a small pond. There doesn't appear to be any online bird identifier similar to what you can get on your phone, so I had to take a phone snap of the image on my computer screen to get it into the Merlin ID app. I had to laugh when the ID came up: song sparrow. D'oh! So pretty from this angle though.

It was interesting to be reminded again how even a sparrow can look huge compared to a yellow-rumped warbler or, as we have here, a townsend's warbler.

Downy Woodpecker

It's still autumn for some of the trees in the botanic garden.

There was a large patch of Peziza cup fungus in some wood chips near the bamboo trail.

Also in the same patch of wood chips, these jumbo Agaricus pancakes (with size 10-1/2 shoe).

Rocky Outcrop near Grandview Park

Succulent Garden on 14th Avenue

One more view of Burney Falls that I forgot I had. The trail that's closing in April makes a circle around the falls, with a bridge that gets you over the river upstream.

* * *

Sunrise This Morning

 

Rear Window View

I happened to look out the back window just as the clouds were picking up some color this morning and set up a timelapse. The center of the action is actually off to the right of the frame, but houses block too much of the view.

Sunrise Timelapse (2/16/24)

* * *

Burney Falls

 

Burney Falls in Winter

Burney Falls is one of those places that I'd swear I visited not too long ago, but it's actually been a dozen years. The spectacular falls made a deep impression. I just read that the state park will close access to the falls for trail maintence from April through the main summer visitor season. 

Burney Falls, Dec. 2012

Burney Falls, Oct. 1993

* * *

Down the Creek

 

Drifting Past the Huckleberries

I figured if I'm going to walk in the rain I'd rather be in the woods than in the city. 

I also wanted to collect some hazel pollen and knew where a couple of hazels were located not too far down Cataract Creek. On my way down to find them I suddenly recalled where I could find a bunch of hazel, only to remember soon afterward that it was a bunch of huckleberry. I had gone to the huckleberry patch before to gather a handful of soil in the hope of transferring some beneficial microbes into the soil around our huckleberry at home. It might have worked too well, come to think of it. Several branches broke under the strain of all the berries we had last year.

When I reached the huckleberries I realized I'd somehow missed the two hazels I had in mind. It wasn't really raining at the time, so I decided to make a few compositions of little scenes in the immediate area. On my way back to the car I found both hazels and collected a little pollen to dust on the flowers of my backyard hazel.

Creekbed Edged with Chain Fern and Hucklberry

Mosses Loving the Rain

Corkscrew Tree

Polypody Ferns

Gentle Cascade with Mossy Rocks

Newt on the Scoot

Fox on the Cam

Recent Tam Cam Clips

* * *

Grab Bag

 

A Gathering of Clouds

Rainy days have thrown me off my usual schedule of urban hikes, but I finally caught up with two neglected routes yesterday and today. 

The bad news yesterday was finding a familiar yucca plant near Hawk Hill that appeared to have been killed by the recent strong winds. (A large pot of oaks in my own yard also got knocked over, but the oaks survived.) I've been gathering a few of the yucca's fallen fruits each time I've hiked past it, then tossing the fruits into a south-facing patch of weeds farther along my route. 

The good news today was finding San Francisco wallflower (Erysimum franciscanum) blooming on the edge of the Oak Woodland in Golden Gate Park.

Tomorrow or the next day I'm planning to drive up to Mt. Tam (doesn't look like very good cycling weather) to hopefully collect some pollen from a hazel or two. I just noticed the female flowers on my backyard hazel are open and ready for business.

Coco the cat has been doing well. We never had to take her to the vet for the first seven years she started hanging around our place, but we've run up more than $12,000 in vet bills in just the last year, mostly on a recent emergency care visit where they kept her for two nights. (When you walk in the door, you hear the chime of a cash register going "ka-ching!") We've been giving Coco subcutaneous fluids every other night at home (and will soon switch to once a week), and we also bought her some prescription cat food which she refuses to eat. I figure with whatever time she has left, she ought to be able to eat her favorite foods, and I'm always relieved when she doesn't flinch as I jab her with the needle for the fluids.

Unrelated to Coco's appearance in our lives I also went "flexitarian" around the same time, so it's been about seven years since I switched to a plant-based diet (partly after learning that my favorite cold-cuts were likely carcinogenic). They say more than half the people my age are taking four or more prescription drugs, but so far I'm not taking any, and I plans to eats me spinach and keep it that way.

Head in the Clouds

The yucca that toppled in the recent strong winds.

The yucca fruits.

One of Today's Roadside Attractions

San Francisco Wallflower in Golden Gate Park

Coco McFuzzy

Salad of spinach, butter lettuce, sliced apple, cherry tomato, corn, green and kalamata olives, and Violife feta.

* * *

Friday Hike

 

Accommodating Bluebird

My wife had the day off so we headed out for a hike on Mt. Tam, leaving the city around 8 a.m. in surprisingly "Friday light" traffic. Yay. 

Since I was there just yesterday I didn't really expect to see anything new, but as soon as we pulled into the Rock Spring parking lot we noticed that a huge branch had broken off one of the great old oaks near the picnic tables. Around the base of the tree we found numerous yellow-staining agarics, which seemed more than a little incriminating. Did these fungi have anything to do with the rotten limb? Are they guilty rotters, or just cute bystanders?

By the way, I got a good look from the Matt Davis Trail at the battered remains of the old iconic Douglas fir, which now appears to be completely dead.

One of the highlights of the hike was spotting a western bluebird that was very accommodating to a couple of shutterbugs. At first we stopped and just looked at him, figuring he'd fly away. He was right next to the trail. Then I finally said, "I know how to make him fly away. I'll get my camera out." But even that didn't work, and I snapped a photo. We took a few steps closer and snapped another photo. Then we took yet another few steps and took yet another photo. Amazing. Thanks, bluebird!

Panoramic Highway was still closed at Pantoll, even to bicyclists.

The fallen limb at Rock Spring.

Another view of the oak that lost a limb.

Some of the many yellow-staining agarics (probably Agaricus xanthodermus) found suspciously near the base of the oak.

Here's a quick comparison between the small waterfall we saw on the Matt Davis Trail on our hike in the rain on Feb. 1, and today.

They say a "bluebird day" is a sky with no clouds, but I usually like a few clouds on my bluebird days (hence the nephophile moniker from a few days ago). We took in this view at right about high tide, which was supposed to be 6.9 feet, which is why Bolinas Lagoon looks like a bay with no mud flats.

Heading north along the Coast Trail.

A tiny bit of yellow slime mold along the Cataract Trail.

This lichen was sporting a bunch of pale beige fruiting bodies. It's growing on the bark of a large Douglas fir.

* * *

Fading Shrooms

 

White Coral Fungus

With the exception of this white coral fungus that's still going strong practically everywhere I look, I didn't see much else fruiting today. The most interesting thing I saw was an area in the woods on the way to the trail cams that looked like some kind of scuffle had taken place. There were flattened patches about the size of a small deer lay, crushed hound's tongue and other plants, and lots of dug-up earth. There were some mossy rocks above it all, and I imagined a bobcat pouncing on something that put up a fight.

After my short hike I thought about heading down to Duxbury Reef for low tide, but my heart wasn't in it. I remembered that the tidepools right after a storm can be quite silty, and I didn't want to drive all the way down there for silty pools, then have to drive back to the city around rush hour. Also, Panoramic Highway from Pantoll to Stinson Beach was closed. According to the state park's web site: "Panoramic Highway is CLOSED between Pantoll Campground and Stinson Beach due to storm damage. It may reopen on Saturday 2/10/24. Access to the park from the Mill Valley side is clear and open."

These little mycena mushrooms looked much redder in the direct sunlight, but it was too harsh for a photo (so I used a diffuser).

Down-and-dirty, as always: a couple of waterlogged chanterelles cozy up beneath a giant, mossy oak tree.

These stout oak branches all rise from a single trunk. 

This bobcat made some interesting scent marks (see video).

Tam Cam 2/8/24

* * *

Nephophile?

 

This morning I rolled out of bed and opened the drapes to a pre-dawn sky nearly free of clouds. A waning crescent moon shone like a golden sculpture, rising much farther to the south than the last time I recall seeing it. 

There was only a 20 percent chance of rain today, and by the time I'd finished my hike-n-bike, some interesting clouds had blown in that looked capable of delivering a little something. Dark as they were, they merely moiled and toiled in a weird, rainless circulation I'd never have noticed if I hadn't run a timelapse. 

As for all these timelapse shots, call me a nephophile -- a lover of clouds.

The chance of rain was a little higher yesterday, but I still made it to the beach before the clouds let loose. I was able to wait it out from a tiny dry area on the beach beneath the sea wall that runs south from Noriega Street. I was pinned down for quite a while, but what the heck, I didn't have to be anywhere. 

A couple of gulls flew over me and gave me the eye. The next time I saw them they'd landed nearby on the sandy berm that blocked my view of the ocean. It was slightly weird. Did they expect me to feed them? I turned away and when I looked again, the two gulls had been joined by several more, as if I had been feeding them. Again, I turned away, scouting the sky to the south, and the next time I looked, the cogs fell into place. They were drinking the fresh rainwater that had drained from the pedestrian-friendly top of the seawall.

Rear Window Timelapse (2/5 & 2/6/24)

Taking Cover

Rain at the Noriega-to-Santiago seawall, with Coast Guard helicopter heading north.

* * *