Ten-Four, Good Buddy

 

Sunrise with Sutro Tower & Twin Peaks, 10/4/2024

The sky was looking so good this morning that I couldn't resist grabbing the camera and heading up the street a little bit to capture a view that wasn't criss-crossed with a web of power lines and telephone poles. Later, as I headed out the door for my UCSF/Cole Valley/Haight Ashbury/GG Park/Inner Sunset walk, I turned around to grab a light jacket to stuff into my knapsack. The fog was rolling in, and I might need it.

By around 9:30, though, the fog had not just rolled back but had simply evaporated. Lucky for everyone heading to the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, there's still a cool breeze.

Heading into the Oak Woodland this morning I spotted a Townsend's warbler and gave chase. The little guy eventually flew away before I was sure I'd even gotten a shot of him. They move so fast through such dense foliage that I almost always feel like I've just missed my chance as they flit out of the frame.

A little while later I heard a bird chirping and was surprised to see it was some kind of little wren. It was like trying to focus on a kernel of popping popcorn, with branches and leaves getting in the way. At one point I had him so lined up and in focus, when a jogger scared him off before I could release the shutter.

There's skill involved with photographing songbirds, and also luck, and some kind of law of averages. Later on, the red-tailed hawks I encountered down by Ocean Beach were another matter: pure luck.

City Dawn from Golden Gate Heights

A river of fog drifted over Golden Gate Park (that's the Kezar Stadium entrance down below) at around 9 a.m., but soon disappeared.

The robins were still going after those Autumn Olive berries. Many berries remain on the bush, but it's probably easier to just snag them off the ground. I tried one myself and found the juice to be sweet and just slightly astringent, but I spit out both the pit and the skin.

No more river of fog.

Townie in the Oaks

Going Up!

Bokeh Bird

All kinds of acorn pieces and whatnot were raining down on me at one point, and this was the critter behind it all.

I hadn't expected to get a shot of the Bewick's wren. The intense backlight often made the lens hunt for something to focus on, and the unprocessed image here was basically a silhouette. I was impressed to find so much detail captured in the jpeg.

This dark-eyed junco had just chased off a rival, puffing up its feathers to make it appear bigger. And it did appear bigger -- maybe twice the size of the one it scared off.

I got off my bike at the bottom of Golden Gate Park to photograph this red-tailed hawk on a light post, when a raven soon drifted over to keep an eye on him.

The (banded) hawk didn't care for the company and flew across the street to perch on a different light pole. I snapped a photo, and by the time the viewfinder black-out was over, the hawk was gone.

Incredibly, he was practically at my feet!

Where he had snagged a mouse in the ice plant, caught here with the nictitating membrane covering his eyes.

He's about to fly away with the mouse. I guess the show's over.

Nope! He hopped up to a nearby fence post.

Determining the coast was clear, with no other hawks or feathered fiends to annoy him, he consumed the mouse.

Just taking care of business, right there next to the bike/pedestrian path, with vehicle traffic just a few feet away.

The overall scene....

I like the guy in the convertible snapping pictures of something else from the car.

I was surprised to find a second red-tail on the cliffs below the Giant Camera (which has been open the last few days, and juding by the total lack of customers I would guess the word is not out yet).

This one was double-banded.

This was the first day in a long time that I could see Mt. Tamalpais from head to toe.

When I entered the park here at 9th & Lincoln on today's bike ride, there was still a lot of construction activity as they finished paving the street. By the time I headed home, it was all done. All the fencing and construction machinery are gone. 

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Botanicals

 

Ginkgo Leaves, San Francisco Botanical Garden

It was refreshingly cool and breezy down in Golden Gate Park this morning. Our apartment is only at about 700 feet in elevation, but it's quite a bit warmer up here. The temperature dropped deliciously as I biked down the hill. The National Weather Service reported the Sunset District was 61 degrees this morning, but it was 75 here at home, and that was as cool as it got all night. 

I don't love it, but I'm not complaining. I know we still have it easy compared to just about everywhere else in the state.

As I passed the entrance to the Botanical Garden I encountered a group of photographers with long lenses trained on the small fountain next to the library building. No birds had shown up yet, and the fountain was still in shade. I kept going, following a line of raccoon tracks in the gravel.

Back at the Children's Garden I didn't see any sign of the ground squirrels. I wondered if it was already too hot or something, but then as I was looking for birds I spotted a coyote. Another bird photographer had already been watching it, and the coyote gave us the slip. I checked a couple of ground squirrel burrow entrances, and they didn't appear to have been discovered by the coyote. I thought it was interesting that another animal was already in there so soon after park authorities had the previous residents shot [see the Coyote Lady's 9/7 update].

A Tangle of Woven Webs

Snare Repair, No. 1

Snare Repair, No. 2

I go back and forth between yellow warbler and orange-crowned warbler, and today I'm going with yellow warbler. [UPDATE: Wrong! It's an orange-crowned warbler.]

Cooper's Hawk

The Steller's jay was looking for somewhere to hide its peanut, maybe figuring it would be camouflaged among cypress cones.

Red-shouldered Hawk

Fall Colors

These speedy little yellow-rumpers are much easier to see than to photograph.

My first hermit thrush in a while.

Orange-crowned warbler feeding on South African Schotia brachypetala flowers (in the pea family).

Once again while trying to get shots of the warblers I accidentally turned on exposure-bracketing, but at least this time I found it much easier to turn off. If you press the wheel to dial in some exposure compensation, but press the cursor instead of turning the wheel, you end up in bracketing mode.

One other note, I wish the Panasonic FZ80D would let you set shutter priority at 1/500th sec. (for example) and have the camera automatically increase ISO after the widest aperture is reached. Currently the viewfinder just goes black unless you increase ISO manually.

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Parrots in the Apple Tree

 

Apple Muncher, Golden Gate Heights

It's heading back toward 80 degrees in our livingroom already, and the sun isn't even striking the front (west-facing) windows yet. A cool and mild sea breeze faked me out this morning, and I began my West Portal/Forest Hill walk in good spirits, figuring the breeze would most likely pick up and cool things down even more.

Nope. The breeze gave out less than half-way through the walk. Later on I was down by the ocean on my bike and casting fond looks out to the hazy, foggy horizon. But still no breeze to bring it in.

I was just a block from home when I saw that a small flock of parrots had landed in someone's apple tree. As I was getting my camera out I had to pick up the pace when I saw the homeowner come outside. I just got off a couple of frames before he hosed water at the parrots and sent them on their way, chattering in their cacophonous parrot language.

Wary Parrot

Lemon Sipper
(The hummer was visiting the lemon trees in the same yard as the apple trees. I'd passed some lemon flowers earlier on my walk and inhaled a snootful of their wonderful scent.)

The pusher tug Barry Silverton and articulated tug barge Dr Robert J Beall, en route to Ferndale, Washington (according to VesselFinder), presumably via the Nooksack River, which is currently less than five feet deep at Ferndale. 

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Good Day for Coyotes

Female Coyote, Golden Gate Park

A good day for coyotes, a bad day for gophers.

I altered my Tuesday walk by just a little bit, but it made a big difference. After trekking along the Sunset Parkway (where I photographed a red-tailed hawk), I normally head back toward home at Irving Street. For some time, though, I've been thinking about continuing along Sunset until it empties right into Golden Gate Park, and today I decided to go for it. 

The new route was immediately better. I was walking on a trail instead of a sidewalk, surrounded by trees instead of houses. I'd hoped to photograph a few songbirds in there but was stymied by having the morning sun in my eyes. I couldn't really complain, though, since the sun is almost never in my eyes around here.

I'd gone about eight blocks when I spotted a coyote on the trail up ahead, and she was in stalking mode, with her ears pointing at the ground in front of her and her body tensing for the pounce. A couple of joggers had recently passed by, and I hoped one wouldn't scare the coyote away before she could pounce. Thankfully, she pounced and caught a gopher before a jogger showed up, and when the jogger got close, the coyote just sauntered a little ways into the weeds.

I followed along for a while as the coyote continued to hunt, and when she squatted a little to pee I realized she was a female. I'd encounter her "husband" a little farther up the trail.

Red-Tail Perched on a Pine, Sunset Parkway

The coyote makes her pounce...

...and gets her gopher.

Urban/Wildland Interface

Nice morning for a stroll in the park.

It's just a little bit unsettling (but in a good way!) when the coyote is walking toward me and filling the frame in my viewfinder....

I sort of snuk up on the male coyote and gave him a brief fright...

...but he quickly realized I wasn't going to chase him or anything, and he got down to business. Nice pounce, but he missed.

Mr. Coyote, Near 25th Avenue

I crossed the street to briefly check out Elk Glen Lake, just in time to watch a great blue heron coming winging in toward the water's edge. And then I noticed it had a mouse in its beak, which it dunked in the lake before sending it down the long and winding road to its stomach.

GBH, Elk Glen Lake

On the way up the Hidden Garden Steps (where the intrepid foxglove no longer had any flowers), I noticed this Official Geocache right out in the open. I wonder if someone found it in the bushes and carelessly left it in the open, or if it was set there on purpose. I'll be surprised if it's still there next week, and if it is still there, I'm not sure I'd want to open it to see what people put have put inside it.

A great blue heron was poised as if posed on what's left of the fallen cypress tree at Metson Lake. Interestingly, the photo looks fake, as if I pasted the GBH there like a magazine cut-out, but this is straight out of the camera.

I watched this red-tailed hawk make a couple of unsuccessful attacks from perches directly above Chain of Lakes Drive near North Lake. After its second pounce it landed on a branch right above me and didn't seem to mind my presence at all. I hoped it wouldn't collide with a car while doing its thing.

The cormorant on the right was fluttering its throat muscles with its beak open -- panting in the heat, birdy style -- at North Lake.

Land's End

When I first spotted the guys in this tandem kayak, they were surrounded by water, which didn't really call for a photo, but that all changed when they paddled past this rock just as a small flock of cormorants winged by in the background.

Beach Weather

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