Coyote in the Park

 

Coyote, Ears On Alert, Golden Gate Park

Yesterday morning was the coldest day I've experienced so far this summer. It was 56 degrees outside my door, a temperature chilled further by the stiff headwinds I faced all the way to the beach. But at least there was a nice reward when I got there. A large group of brown pelicans was circling above the ocean just offshore and taking turns diving like falling spears in pursuit of fish. I've been waiting all summer to see that.

I've also been waiting a long time to cross paths with a coyote, and I finally got my wish. I was riding down the same bike path where I recently encountered a red-shouldered hawk, just as a coyote wanted to cross the path. I was going too fast to stop right away, and I watched as the coyote crossed the path behind me and continued up a small hill. I turned the bike around and walked it back up the hill, quietly, to see if I could spot him again.

I was pleasantly surprised to see him staked out on the hunt next to the sandy trail. At first he paid me no mind, but when nothing came of the stake-out, he turned back across the trail and ambled into deep cover. I looked for him to no avail, then continued to the beach.

At the beach I had good views of some pigeon guillemots and surf scoters, the usual sea lions and brown pelicans, and had a surprisingly close visit from a black oystercatcher and a few black turnstones.

On the way home, nearly shivering from the cold, I decided to try my luck finding the coyote. Instead of riding up the paved trail, I took the sandy one, pedaling slowly and quietly. I couldn't believe my luck when I did see the coyote again, and I even heard it as well: it seemed to be chewing on a pine cone! 

At least, that's what it sounded like.... 

Coyote-by-the-Trail

I've often seen pigeon guillemots that I believed were nesting in some rocky nooks just below the Cliff House. Sometimes I'd see one or two of them darting out toward Seal Rocks, and other times they'd come darting back like missiles toward the face of the cliff...

...but today I saw several of them and wondered if they were a family group, i.e., fledglings from the Cliff House nest.

Surf Scoters

Sea Lions

Brown Pelicans & Giant Camera

The black oystercatcher was bathing in this tidepool just below the Cliff House. By the time it occurred to me to switch to movie mode, the bird was exiting the pool to dry off its feathers.

Black Oystercatcher Drying Its Feathers

(in slow motion)

After bathing, a bit of preening.

As soon as the oystercatcher was out of the pool, a group of black turnstones showed up to have a little splash.

One of the turnstones was more interested in foraging than bathing.

When I first stopped, and before I could even get my camera out, it looked and sounded like the coyote was eating a pine cone, perhaps as a form of play. So crunchy! But then I realized it wasn't a pine cone making all that noise. It was gopher bones.

Such a satisfying meal.

Surprisingly, the coyote stuck around to look for another bite to eat. Here he's got his leg up, slowly stalking closer to his prey.

And then he does the show-off pounce...

...but misses the mark. He digs around for a minute but finally gives up.

He gives me a look as if I jinxed him, then trots away.

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Mirror, Mirror

 

Sunflower
(Click images to view larger.)

Mirror, mirror, on the wall.

Should I go mirrorless, after all?

The short answer is, "not yet." I like the advantages of a Nikon Z8 over my D800E, such as being able to crank the ISO up to 9000 to get a fast shutter speed for bird and other widlife photography, and to eliminating mirror-slap during focus-stacking and timelapse photography. The one disadvantage that holds me back is the means of focus-stacking in mirrorless cameras.

From what I gather, focus-stacking is automated to an extent, but isn't quite dialed in yet. It looks like a complicated set-up that involves going into the menu to punch in your settings, and there's no way to set the front-to-back range that you want to be sharp. Sometimes you want everything to be sharp, but other times you want a range to be sharp while leaving the background out of focus.

I'm surprised we can't just choose an aperture setting then press a button to set the front and rear focus points (one press for the front, another press for the back), and let the camera, with all its ingenious software, calculate and run the interval to cover the selected focus range. And we should be able to do that in the viewfinder, not just the display screen. I don't want to have to go into the menus.

There are other advantages to going mirrorless, but if I'm going to buy a $4,000 camera, I don't want to have to buy another one when a new model finally comes out that makes focus-stacking, which is one of the great innovations of digital photography, simpler.

* * *

Around the Horn

 

Whimbrel at Heron's Head Park

On Saturday I rode out to Heron's Head Park by way of Golden Gate Park, the Panhandle and The Wiggle, then down 17th Street through the Mission and Dog Patch, and finally south on Illinois Street to Cargo Way. For the homeward trip I followed the coast all the way past the Giants ballpark and the Ferry Building, past Fisherman's Wharf and Fort Mason, past Crissy Field and the Golden Gate Bridge, past Baker Beach, Seacliff and China Beach, past the Legion of Honor Museum to Land's End and the Cliff House, then back home through Golden Gate Park where I rode past the Outside Lands music festival (which I can still hear -- our windows even rattle on occasion -- despite it being miles away, as I type this out).

Willet Siesta

I don't think I've ever seen a whimbrel lie down before.

A couple of black-necked stilts worked a mud flat with a lone American avocet.

A least sandpiper shows no fear as the dreaded black-necked stilt probes closer and closer....

A double-crested cormorant worked the shallows at Heron's Head Park.

My, what a long neck this willet has.

Home is where the fog is (view from Heron's Head Park).

A squadron of brown pelicans soars over the bay past Heron's Head.

The whimbrel returns to action.

There's an area just east of Illinois Street around 20th to 22nd streets that I always like to check out when I ride by. I like the decrepit old buildings, but I also like finding something new, where an old decrepit building has been redeveloped and turned into something interesting...

...like Building 12, where I saw padel tennis courts, a motorcycle shop, and some other kind of shopping area that looked like Open Studios, but about clothing instead of art.

Scuderia at Building 12.

I like how the street looks done before there's any reason to drive down here.

Salesforce Tower looms over Oracle Park.

Game day, as the Giants were about to beat the Detroit Tigers.

Wing foils slicing across the bay behind Fort Mason.

Wing-foilers off Crissy Field.

The leading edges and the central axis they hold onto are inflated with air. I only know that because I saw a guy pumping his wings back up in the parking lot.

I was watching the long-billed curlew through my lens when the herring gull darted into the water to snag a little crab.

Long-billed curlew at Crissy Lagoon.

There must have been a fair number of fish in Crissy Lagoon, as there were usually several pelicans diving into the shallow water to feed.

The pelican in the back is just opening its beak before taking a plunge into the water to try to snag some lunch. I wonder if the other pelican is mainly looking up, or down into the water. I wonder how the bird's mind even processes such divergent visual perspectives.

The orange beaks caught my attention: elegant terns.

Land's End cliffs (with pelicans) as seen from China Beach.

* * *

Seasons Fleeting

 

Oaks on Whiskey Hill, Golden Gate Park
(4/26/24 and 8/9/24)

One of my daily walks takes me along the spine of a low hill that parallels Lincoln Way on the southeastern edge of Golden Gate Park. I never knew the hill had a name until it appeared in a newsletter published by a neighbor who mentioned it in relation to some large eucalyptus trees that can be found there (upon one of which I saw a  large fruiting of chicken-of-the-woods back in 2023; photo below).

Back in late April of this year I was struck by the fresh spring beauty of the oaks and grass at the eastern edge of the hill and knew I'd want to make a comparison shot once the grass turned brown. Well, the grass is Earharta erecta, aka panic veldtgrass. It's a widespread invasive that San Francisco park staff and volunteers do their best to keep in check where possible. 

I had to wait a long time for enough of the Earharta to turn brown for the "after" picture. The grasses on Mt. Tam had been brown for weeks before this stuff finally went to seed, and I wonder if its ability to thrive while other grasses have gone to seed is part of its key to success.

Deciduous Street
(3/13/24 and 6/25/24)

I'm including the "Deciduous Street" now because I couldn't find the bare-branch photo in my files back in June, when I took the leafy shot. I probably thought March was too late in the season to look for bare branches, but I came across it by accident just the other day.

This is the chicken-of-the-woods that was growing on the eucalyptus on Whiskey Hill back on December 8, 2023 (it didn't make the blog at the time).

I photographed this pine near the start of my Friday morning walk, with the thought that it's winter now in Australia and the southern hemisphere -- and also in San Francisco.

These little Coprinus mushrooms were sprouting below a planted tree on the UCSF campus on Parnassus Heights.

A patch of Crocosmia lilies was sprouting colorfully through the slats of its fenced garden enclosure on 10th Avenue.

* * *

Riding the Wind

 

Brown Pelicans Flying Into The Wind

I had the unusual sensation of feeling a little groggy again during my walk this morning, but I think I figured out what's going on. I believe the reason is that I haven't been wearing my glasses on my walks. My vision is okay enough to walk around, but I need glasses to drive, and without them the world is just a tad fuzzy (my prescription is basically 1.5-diopter reading glasses). The grogginess seemed to coincide with my decision to walk glasses-free, and sure enough when I put them on part-way through today's walk, I brightened right up.

Weird, right? Seeing the world a little bit fuzzy makes my mind a little bit fuzzy! Actually, I love that kind of weirdness, and I was determined to keep walking without wearing glasses, so I put them back in my pocket and continued in a state of semi-fuzziness.

I put the glasses back on for the bike ride, though. Too dangerous to ride fuzzy, and too beautiful a day to settle for soft-focus. [UPDATE: The very next day I read an article about vision loss leading to dementia. Time to get more comfortable glasses for my walks!]

Many brown pelicans were flying along the coast. I'd forgotten that brown pelicans were headed toward extinction back in the '70s due to DDT poisoning, and finally recovered enough to be taken off the endangered speciest list in 2009. I was treated to some close fly-bys as I watched several squadrons wing past the Cliff House today. They were slowed down a little by strong headwinds, which allowed for an excellent view of these awesome birds.

Surf Scoters

The sea lions were boisterously barking today. I don't always notice them making noise out there.

Low Altitude Drift

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