Weasel Park

 

Bounding Through the Morning Dew

Until today I'd only caught glimpses of our resident long-tailed weasels. The best sighting I had was a single critter bounding toward me and my wife on a trail in Tennessee Valley, and it shot past our feet before I could even think about trying to take a picture. 

When I recently got a tip about where to photograph weasels (thanks, Greg!), I wondered if I'd actually get lucky enough to see one when I got there. In fact, the first "weasel" I set up on turned out to be a gopher! Soon enough, though, I was staring through my lens at the real thing -- and not just one real thing, but several of them.

Greeting the Morning

At first these sweet-looking fur-bearers stayed very close to their burrows, just briefly popping up to periscope the terrain.

Formerly in the genus Mustela, long-tailed weasels are now known as Neogale frenata. I wondered if the "frenata" was derived from the Latin for "frenzied" but it actually means "bridle," in reference to its facial markings. The generic epithet is from Greek, not Latin, for "new weasel," in reference to these being New World weasels. In Greek mythology, Gale "was a very skillful witch who earned the wrath of Hecate, the Greek goddess of magic."

This black phoebe snagged a fat treat that the bird maneuvered with its beak until the whole caterpillar went down the hatch.

The old lichen-crusted goalposts also provided pit stops for other birds, like this violet-green swallow.

Hands-Down Cute

This is the only full-frame shot in today's post (the rest are cropped). With my 300mm lens and 1.7X teleconverter I had 500mm of reach. Unfortunately, I found right away that my old-tech autofocus wasn't going to cut it, so I had to shoot everything using manual focus.

I love their little dirt-crusted paws (click pictures to view larger).

Flying antics above a burrow hole.

A few of the weasels were interested in climbing around on the goal posts, but they didn't climb very high up. I wouldn't be surprised if they could get to the top, but they might instinctually feel it would be pushing their luck to get so far from their burrows.

This is a very serious-looking weasel.

Goldfinch on the Goal Post

Stretching their legs as well as their bodies.

Sometimes there were as many as three or four weasels playing in close proximity around the burrows. 

I promised not to name this place on the blog, but I was not the only photographer there. One of the photographers was asking people not to get closer than 25 feet from the weasels. He got some guff when he asked a woman to move back, and it escalated to the point where she dropped an F-bomb on him, and he phoned for a ranger to come by. 

And such a beautiful morning!

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Duxbury Reef

 

Opalescent Nudibranch at Duxbury Reef

The 8 a.m. low tide (minus 1.2 feet!) and only a slight breeze were enough to get me out of bed and into the Memorial Day weekend traffic to visit Duxbury Reef just south of Point Reyes. It's a long and winding road to get there, but I did get to enjoy a couple of Beatles songs on the way. 

Traffic was a non-issue at that hour, and even my return trip to San Francisco was fine at about 11 a.m. I returned by way of Rock Spring on Mt. Tam, where the parking area was quite full, with many more cars still on their way up the mountain. 

The only bummer was pulling into my garage when I got home and having no Fuzzy Girl come out to greet me.

I believe this is a clam with at least its exhalant siphon showing (and maybe its inhalant siphon to the right?). You can see little tan tubes of clam poop in the pool. I didn't notice that white cloudy stuff to the left of the clam until I pulled up the photo at home, but I don't think it's a reflection or other photographic artifact.

I liked how these little "leaves" of coralline algae were staking out this rock in much the same way as some lichens do on land.

Giant Green Anemones

Pink Volcano Barnacle

This was one of only two Ochre Sea Stars I saw all morning. The other was orange colored, and both looked healthy. They were definitely smaller than the ones I saw recently at Mile Rock Beach.

The anemone beckons....

I can't resist beautiful beds of fanned-out coralline algae in clear tidepools.

Aggregating Anemones do their thing in a tidepool grotto.

Although I was the first person on the reef, I eventually had lots of company, many of whom were children. When one of them exclaimed "Octopus!" I kept my ears open. Unfortunately, as soon as Mom took a look, the octopus turned into an anemone.

Mussel Beach

This is the same 'branch as the one in the top picture, as it continues its glide up some leafy algae.

When you find one of these guys, you often find others nearby. I liked how this one's orange-tipped cerata are hanging in the current.

I think this is a Brooding Anemone. Completely exposed to the air at this point, it has pulled into itself to retain moisture.

This is a tiny orange sea cucumber (Cucumaria miniata), which I first saw at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, mistaking it at the time for a nudibranch.

This little six-rayed sea star could have hidden behind a quarter. Maybe even a nickel. This was one of only two I saw all morning (and the only one in range to photograph).

I'm thinking this is a clam siphon again, only really opened up this time. I love how crazy this thing looks. You think you're going to eat a clam, and then this thing pops out and eats you!

Sometmies a sea anemone will be inside-out. I saw two like this, and I believe it's a way for the anemone, which has no anus (poor thing), to regurgitate the indigestible parts of its prey.

I gently tried to pick up this shell, but it turned out to be occupied. I don't think I've ever found a live one before. It might be Ceratostoma foliatum (iNaturalist).

While I was unsuccessfully trying to figure out how to photograph a Hilton's aeolid that was too far into the tidepool to reach without having to take off my shoes, pull up my pants, and wade in, someone nearby called out that they'd seen a nudibranch. I wandered over with the hope of seeing a new species, but nope.

At first I thought the upside-down crab on the bottom was trying to turn itself over, but it was just the hermit crabs (living in turban snail shells) moving the dead crab's legs as they tried to devour the meat inside. Quite a few other hermit crabs  of various sizes were quickly crawling toward the feast.

Here's a Purple Sea Urchin with its tube feet projecting farther out than its spines. Despite their name, these tube feet are made less for walking than for bringing food to the urchin's mouth, and even for breathing.

Universe of spines and tube feet.

Keyhole Limpet

This phone snap shows how exposed Duxbury Reef remained, even a couple of hours after the peak of low tide.

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Tam Cam

 

Evening Velvet

After a harrowing day on Wednesday I figured a bike ride up to Mt. Tam would be good medicine for Thursday. It was a beautiful day to be outdoors, but I still felt a little too raw to fully enjoy it. I'd hoped the shorebirds along Richardson Bay would cheer me up, but I guess they've moved on to their nesting sites. There were just a couple of egrets on the low-tide mud flats on my way up, and they still had the place to themselves when I returned after the tide came in.

I stopped to shoot a selfie and text my wife when I got up to Mt. Tam and was surprised to find I had full bars and even 5G reception. My photo went through in a snap. I stopped at the same place again on my way down and had no cell connection at all. Weird. I wondered if I'd somehow latched onto a special signal related to the fire crew doing a controlled burn along West Ridgecrest Road. 

As I continued riding up the mountain I watched a red-tailed hawk glide into view from way up on Bolinas Ridge. It had a small snake in its talons and continued to glide down toward the forest, its wings outstretched, until it dipped out of sight. Farther up the hill I found a dead baby gopher snake in the road. I moved it onto the grassy shoulder so maybe another bird or animal could make use of it. 

On the way to the trail camera I spotted quite a few sickle-leaved onions in full bloom, along with many Tamalpais jewelflowers (I'd forgotten how tiny they are in person), and even a few early yellow mariposa lilies. The yerba santa was also in full bloom, and most of the grasses are already turning brown. I picked up the trail cam and took it home, so these will be the last trail cam shots for a while.

I'd stopped at the Good Earth grocery store in Tam Junction on the way up, where I snagged one of their amazing cheese croissants along with a Cosmic Crisp apple to enjoy for lunch at the Rock Spring picnic area. Gazing out over the meadow as I ate, I felt grateful for the time my wife and I got to share with Coco the cat. Here we all are, in a universe where time began about 14 billion years ago, yet time is apportioned in relatively tiny slices to us living creatures. The least I can do in gratitude for my own tiny slice is to savor the beauty in every moment, and even the sadness when it comes, and to love the ones I'm with as we share our tiny slices of time together.

Composite of a gray fox crossing the ravine.

The mother, moving with single-minded purpose, didn't look back at all, but something caught the fawn's attention. Was it a bird call, a rustle of grass where a lizard ran through, or some noise from the trail camera that would be imperceptible to human ears?

It looks like this young buck is somewhat right-antlered....

Tam Cam Video Clips

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Goodbye Fuzzy Girl

 

Coco the Cat, aka Fuzzy Girl

Toward the end of a rough month of vet visits and enduring the indignities of forced medication, Coco lost her taste for food and stopped eating. Even her absolute favorite treat, tuna, no longer held any appeal. At 18 years of age, her body was shutting down, and even though we could see it coming we still burst out in tears when our vet recommended euthanasia to stop her suffering a slow death by starvation. 

The vet who came to our home to ease her suffering forever brought a taste treat to give Coco before administering the first injection, and even at that point I knew that if Coco ate any of it, I was going to call off the euthanasia. But she didn't even acknowledge the treat, and minutes later we were in tears over her lifeless body.

Although I download photos from my phone from time to time, I hadn't done so since March, and when I checked, Coco was in practically every other photo I had on there. From within my grief, I share my joy.

I snapped this shot about a week ago, but this is very close to how I first saw Coco about eight years ago, when she was a semi-feral neighborhood cat emerging from the neighbor's yard to accept some kibble, but too wary to come close enough to touch. Over the years, she became part of our family.

I was always amazed at her total fearlessness around heights. She liked to be up on the railing to have her loose hair brushed off (I would send the tufts floating away on the winds), and the weathered beam made a great scratching post (although she might have liked the corner of our couch even better).

Enjoying the afternoon sun in the front entry way.

Taking refuge in her cat cave, a repurposed Chewy box.

A couple of retired pals chillin' on a sunny afternoon.

Coco used to wander all over the yards and streets for blocks around, but she rarely set foot outside the front gate for the last year or so. Here, she walked out to the curb and appeared to look wistfully down the hill before turning to go back inside to safety.

She often snoozed on the floor next to my chair as I worked at my computer desk, sometimes pressing right up against the chair's legs. 

One of our favorite routines was doing a little gardening together, or maybe just hanging out on the cushioned bench at the base of the stairs.

Hanging out on the bench for the last time.

Coco first appeared in one of my yard cams on December 23, 2015, when she was caught in a stand-off with another neighborhood cat. I used to put out kibble for the cats in the probably vain hope that they wouldn't go after birds if they weren't hungry.

Over the next few years we sort of adopted each other. Then the pandemic lockdown, followed by my retirement, gave us a lot more time together. My wife is allergic to cats, but she could never resist Coco despite all the Zyrtec and asthma inhalers. 

Coco was always an outdoor cat by choice, but she liked to stay in our basement during cold or rainy weather. More recently, as she got older and her health declined, she wanted to stay in every night. We were apprehensive because she had never taken to using a litter box -- until we found out about Dr. Elsey's Cat Attract litter, which (thankfully) she took to. Sometimes we even let her in the apartment for a few hours, and we have the cat-clawed furniture to prove it. Now those little patches of shredded fabric just remind us how much we miss her.

A couple of my first blog posts featuring Coco are here and here.

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