Summer in the City

 

Cool Shorebreak

I was surprised last night when the television weather forecaster said the water off Ocean Beach was 61 degrees (61.3 according to these guys). It's pretty rare for the temps to climb out of the 50s.

I was also surprised to wake up to a clear, sunny day today. Combined with a cool sea breeze it was a perfect day to be outside, with a high of 70 degrees. Hard to believe it's over 100 not that far inland.

Brown pelicans were winging it along the coast...

...and once again taking rest breaks on Seal Rocks.

It was so bright and sunny, I figured the FZ80 would be able to reach a high enough shutter speed to stop the splash-motion of the shorebreak as it rushed into rocks on the beach.

1/1000th sec. exposure @ f/8

My wife and I still miss our kitty kat, and I couldn't resist snapping this photo when I saw the name of the boat through my lens.

Lots of power in the surf today.

This is a sub-adult black-crowned night heron at Metson Lake, but it's a more mature one than the bird I photographed there yesterday.

And as I was watching the sub-adult, this adult heron sprang out from behind a thicket of branches and took up a position in the open.

The wild parrots have been in the neighborhood a lot lately, and when I got home I could hear them chattering away in my neighbor's oak tree.

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Amoeba Marker

Going Up, December 22, 2023

You might remember when there was a McDonald's fast-food joint down there on the corner of Haight and Stanyan. It was one of the sketchiest Mickey Dees you'd ever want to go into, and the city (after complaining about all the calls for police there) bought the property and demolished the restaurant in 2018. They ran a temporary homeless encampment on the site during the pandemic (despite a lawsuit to stop it), then gave everyone the boot in order to build affordable apartments.

Since I walk past this location on one of my weekly neighborhood walks, I thought it would be fun to do a "time drift" of the construction. When I first saw the crane rising behind the Amoeba Music "Bowling" tower, I figured that would be a good marker to help me shoot from the same location every week. All the shots were taken around 9:30 to 10 a.m. on Fridays (note the long December shadow vs. the sparse shadow today).

January 26, 2024

March 22, 2024

A pre-fab section of the outer wall of the building (complete with windows) is being lowered into position on May 16, 2024.

Most of the lower floors have walls in place on May 31, 2024.

It appeared that all the walls were up today, July 19, 2024, and I don't expect the view from this angle to change much at this point.

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Morning Night Heron

 

Juvenile Black-Crowned Night Heron, Metson Lake

After covering a fair amount of ground on my bike this morning, I was surprised to see that it was only 9:30 when I got home. My wife's Lyft driver had picked her up at 4 a.m. to catch an early flight, so I was up and ready to head out the door at 7 o'clock. After dropping down our steep hill through cold, dense fog (glad to have put on a long-john top beneath my windbreaker), I crossed Golden Gate Park and the Richmond District to try to find the coyotes that recently led to the closing of a small dog park near Mountain Lake in the Presidio.

No luck on the coyotes, but it was interesting to explore the area around the incredibly verdant Presidio Golf Course. After checking out Mountain Lake I continued west until I crossed Highway 1, right where cars enter the MacArthur Tunnel. Above the tunnel was a whole other world of manicured greens and fairways with tall, fog-shrouded pines -- a very peaceful contrast to the speeding traffic below.

I continued riding through the Presidio to the coast at Lincoln Boulevard, then down past Baker Beach and Lobos Dunes, through Sea Cliff and the newly renovated China Beach, then past the Legion of Honor Museum to Land's End, where I hoped to scan the ocean for migrating gray whales (many have recently been spotted off the coast at Pacifica). Unfortunately, visibility in the Golden Gate was still poor due to the fog, and both fog and choppy seas made sightings all but impossible from above Sutro Baths.

Riding home I checked the Metson Lake treefall for herons, as usual. There's a juvenile black-crowned night heron that I've seen several times recently, but it's usually too well-concealed among the cacophony of branches to be able to photograph it. This time it was right out in the open.

I haven't seen a great blue heron anywhere in the park in quite a while. I guess they all move on after nesting season, adults and juveniles alike.

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Cormorant Rocks

 

Pelican-free Seal Rocks flecked with cormorants, and a giant container ship making for the Port of Oakland.

I was surprised to find zero pelicans hanging out on Seal Rocks today. The cormorants were still out there, and I could hear a few black oystercatchers whistling, but there were no pelicans and very few Heermann's gulls, although a good-sized crowd of western gulls was hanging out at Sutro Baths. The wind wasn't terribly strong, but it was enough to dismantle the waves, and there wasn't a surfer in the water as far as I could see.

I watched a nearly brand-new container ship, the Singapore-flagged Wan Hai A05 (built in 2023), as it steamed toward the Golden Gate, and wondered where all the pelicans had gone. I didn't even see any flying around . . . until, after several minutes, a few squadrons passed by. Not one of them landed on the rocks to rest, though. 

Bringing in the goods, with the Marin Headlands and the golden flanks of Mt. Tamalpais in the background. It seems most container ships have unimaginative names, like Wan Hai A05. I guess it's easier than fighting over who gets the name "Singapore Princess" or "Marco Polo Dreaming"....

Pelican Squadron

With high tides over six feet, an inland sea is created at Ocean Beach.

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Waves

 

Wind Waves in the Clouds

With triple-digit temperatures again in the forecast for Yosemite Valley, it occurs to me that heat waves are probably the only waves I don't much care for. I was reading this morning that it's becoming nearly impossible for PCT hikers to complete the whole trail in one season because of wildfires along the trail. Add to that the issue of backpacking in serious heat, and it makes me wonder how much of that epic hike along the spine of the Sierra is actually enjoyable. 

As for me, I'm hoping for some slightly less-scorching days next week to do a little day-hiking and photography up there, but the forecast isn't promising.

A few of the brown pelicans resting on Seal Rocks got a rude surprise when a few sneaker waves plowed through.

There were quite a few recreational fishers in boats just south of Seal Rocks, but I have yet to see the pelicans take an interest in whatever fish are out there.

There's a helicopter on the beach in the distance. The fire and rescue folks were doing some training in the surf.

Flyin' High

A western gull makes some noise atop the Cliff House.

The Hidden Garden Steps foxglove is still blooming nicely.

Here's the foxglove on 7/31, with new blossoms opening up near the base of the plant. This is one tenacious digitalis.

By 8/20, the main stalk had been knocked over (it was fine up to last week), but the plant keeps producing flowers. I gathered a few of the fruits and planted them in our garden, in the probably vain hope that they will somehow elude the raccoons, squirrels, and birds that are often digging around back there.

The last bloom is about to fall off this tough old foxglove plant on 9/3. Not bad for a plant that somehow sprouted from a crack in a cement gutter.

I spoke too soon about the "last bloom." Today, 9/24 (the third day of autumn), I saw yet another young blossom on the foxglove. And the plant itself does not look like it's about to wither away anytime soon.)

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Golden Hills

 

Summer Hills of Mt. Tamalpais

We were grateful for the cloudy sky above the fog today. It was a cool and pleasant 71 degrees when we started our hike at Rock Spring at about 9:30, but it got quite a bit warmer out along the Coast Trail, reaching a high of 87.3 before we finally descended into the shade of the Cataract Creek Trail.

The grassy hillsides were at their golden best, with the tall dry grass still fresh enough to soften the landscape with its cloak of fur. It's funny to speak of the dry grass being "fresh," but in another month it will look quite different out there. Within the forests, the little side creeks were all dried up, and bay laurel leaves perfumed the air. Thanks to the Merlin app on my phone, I learned another bird call today -- the western flycatcher -- which makes a whistle like a human trying to get your attention (check the second recording: California, 6/29/19).

View from the Old Mine Trail

Mt. Diablo in the Distance

Furry Hillsides, View Toward East Peak

Gray Squirrel Munching a Nut

Golden Fence Lizard

He was ready to dive into the hole, but not exactly eager. There were so many hikers on the trail today that he would certainly have future opportunities.

Coast Trail Above Stinson Beach

As we were hiking we heard a strange sound that reminded me of the screaming of dozens of excited children that I heard the other day as I rode past the Polo Fields in Golden Gate Park. But then we realized part of the noise was the siren of a rescue vehicle, with the rest of it being the wailing of numerous coyotes. A chopper soon appeared and landed on Stinson Beach, and it looked like someone on a stretcher was loaded aboard before it took off. You can see a circle of greenish cones meant to keep the landing zone clear.

Layers Upon Layers

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Hint of Blue

 

Young Bluebird, Golden Gate Park

A passel of passerines, with a hint of blue, brought me to a stop near the Polo Fields today. The little young bluebirds kept an instinctual eye toward the sky, and it wasn't me they were afraid of when they scattered into some nearby brush, but a hawk gliding overhead.

There had also been a hint of blue in the sky above Seal Rocks, but the fog billowing in from the south kept pushing the blue away. The young sea lion had moved on. More than the usual number of recreational fishing boats, as well as charters, bobbed offshore. Is it because it's Friday in the summertime, or are the fish actually biting? 

At Metson Lake, an extremely well-camouflaged black-crowned night heron was hunting from among the fallen tree branches. Only its yellow legs tipped me off to its presence, and when it saw me getting into position for a photo (drat that new high-visibility bike jacket), it scuttled into deeper cover.

The Enforcers (Rookie Birds in Blue)

Bluebird on a Lamp Post

Bluebirds on Overwatch

Curbed Bluebird

Seal Rocks and Fishing Boats

Black Oystercatcher on the Wing

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Grandview Gus

Ground Squirrel at Grandview Park
(Otospermophilus beecheyi)

I can only imagine how this California Ground Squirrel made its way to Grandview Park, and I can only hope he's not alone up there. I'm going to call him Gus for now, but hopefully there's a Grandview Gloria nearby as well. 

My wife and I saw him yesterday by luck. I had been checking out some plants near the edge of the park as we were out for a walk when I spooked something that sounded too big to be a bird. I didn't get a great look at it as it darted away through dense ground cover, but my wife was perfectly positioned to see it dive into its burrow. Later in the day I went back to see if I could place a trail cam near the burrow, but I didn't see a good spot for it. Luckily I also had the FZ80 with me, and I was ready when the squirrel briefly showed itself.

I had never seen a ground squirrel in San Francisco before, and a check of iNaturalist shows few sightings anywhere near Grandview. Most are out around Candlestick Park.

I was interested to see that some coast buckwheat flower heads near the burrow had been chewed off, leaving bare, pointy stems sticking up. If that's what the squirrel likes to eat, there should be plenty of food to last a while. I do wonder if Gus will be able to stay, or if he'll just be passing through like the river otter, Sutro Sam, who had to move on after eating all the fish in Sutro Baths. 

iNaturalist Ground Squirrel Observations Map
(The sighting on Market Street is from 1989, but the one by the Embarcadero is from 2021.)

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