Rainy Days

 

Placid Mallard Lake, Golden Gate Park

I love a rainy day, but I'm not too crazy about those "showery" periods where there isn't enough rain to show up on the weather radar, but there's plenty to make you wet if you decide to go for a walk. It seemed like a new radar-invisible shower would roll in every time I got ready to go out this morning, so I finally gave up on a long walk and instead put on my rain gear to go out and experience the wind and rain at nearby Grandview Park.

The past several days haven't been very photo- or blog-inspiring. The Mallard Lake scene above is from Tuesday. Yesterday I was surprised to see a couple of band-tailed pigeons with their telltale white-striped necks in a street tree in Forest Hill, but they were mostly obscured by branches. I'm used to seeing bandies on Mt. Tam and don't think I've ever seen them before in the city.

Though I wasn't able to photograph it, a scene from yesterday that stood out was watching a red-shouldered hawk fly over the JFK Promenade (north of the De Young Museum) with a large, forked, lichen-tassled branch in its beak. It lost its grip just before reaching a landing spot on a eucalyptus tree, and the branch fell like a spear. Fortunately, it landed in some plants instead of on top of someone's head.

One of the band-tailed pigeons appeared to be sitting on a nest, but it might just have been a bunch of sticks.

On the Nest (Feb. 20, 2025)

On the Nest (Feb. 26, 2025)

Can't tell if there are any chicks under there yet (Mar. 5, 2025), but glad to see the nest is still intact.

A couple of mourning doves were hunkered down at Grandview Park this morning. They often hang out on the staircase railings, or even on the stairs, but it might have been too windy for that today. My wind meter read 15-30 mph at the top of Grandview's south-facing stairs, with gusts between 30-35, and one gusty devil topping 40 mph.

Fluffed Feathers After The Rain

While I was trying to hold the camera steady enough to photograph the doves, this tiny powerhouse flew onto a nearby perch. Gusting winds drove it to several other perches before it zoomed away.

Footsteps of Spring

The sparrows were very jumpy and keeping to concealment until it started to rain.  Then they all came out. Unfortunately, I had to lower my shutter speed due to the darkened sky, and I soon decided to leave when the rain began to fall in earnest.

After the Rain

Wind Clips From Grandview Park

Screen grab of the Mt. Shasta sunrise from last Saturday.

Another grab from Tuesday.

This morning's view from the High Sierra cam.

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Magical Thinking

 

Green Heron Shows Its Tongue

I held off on my walk today after looking at the Accuweather radar report, which forecast rain starting at my location in 29 minutes, which would have had me getting wet about one-third of the way into my jaunt. I figured I would just wait and stay dry. And besides, I had other things to do, so I did them. 

Naturally, it never rained another drop. Highly local weather forecasts often miss the mark despite all the available technology.

As I was watching the green heron at the Lily Pond this morning I overheard someone urging the gardener who was working there to join her in an experiment, and to spread the word to get more folks on board. The experimenters would pray for good outcomes at the lakes throughout the park, then later judge their success. 

I've actually heard of scientists looking for evidence of the efficacy of prayer, and they have yet to find it. As the gardener went back to placing mulch around the edge of the pond, I couldn't help thinking his work was a far more certain way to achieve a good outcome than any number of folks praying for it (even assuming they could all agree on what the good outcome would be).

Although the green heron was out in the open and close to shore, the person advocating prayer to benefit nature was unable to see it.

I wasn't going to post this shot of a mostly concealed hairy woodpecker until I noticed those big feet. Maybe it's just the angle, but they seem large in proportion to the size of the bird. Just for laughs I googled "do hairy woodpeckers have large feet," and the humorless AI response was, "No, hairy woodpeckers don't have large feet." 

Dense gray clouds scudded across the sky throughout my walk, but it never did rain again after the early morning soaking.

Got One

Bird tongues do have taste buds, but the green heron's is also suited to guiding prey into its mouth. Green herons (also known as water witches, possibly because they sometimes use tools to lure prey into range) are the second-smallest herons in the United States, just behind the least bittern.

And speaking of small birds, the resident male and female ruby-crowned kinglets were active again today, often using these elderberry branches to launch from.

Nearby blackberry vines are another favorite launching point.

Big Ole Heron Feet
(Once again I'm contradicted by Google AI, which accepts no poetic license and calls their feet "stout," but not "big.")

A mallard hen casually paddled into the duckweed, taking no notice of the heron.

And the heron seemed to reciprocate by ignoring the duck.

Green Heron In Motion

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More Green Heron

 

Green Heron at Lily Pond, Golden Gate Park

The rain finally took a break around 12:30 this afternoon, so I broke the cabin fever by riding down to the San Francisco Botanical Gardens to see what I might find on a rainy day, then eventually moved on to check out the Lily Pond. 

The green heron was on the east side of the pond, right where it was first reported (it was over on the west side yesterday). At first it was in some reeds much like the ones it was hunting in yesterday, although the light was completely different today under cloudy skies. In fact, the cloudy skies soon became rainy skies, and I had to go find a little bit of cover to slip into my rain pants. 

When I returned, the heron flew over to some nearby branches, chasing off a black phoebe that had been using the perch to hawk from. Then the heron popped over to an even closer branch for a little while before swooping onto the edge of the pond and out of my line of sight. Eventually it flew back to the branches, but only as a brief stopover before flying out of sight again.

The pink magnolia tree still looks pretty fresh.

Townie Hopper

Hummer in the Pink

The scrub jay picked up some lichen a couple of times, but I didn't see if he just dropped it, or ate it, or what.

But it soon jumped down to the ground and foraged a snail out of some nearby plants, then took it over to this rock to peck off the shell.

It continued pecking off more shell from the cover of a manzanita branch before finally freeing the gastropod for consumption.

Peekaboo Kinglet

There was a lot of chainsaw noise up by the hummingbirds' aloe patch. A huge eucalyptus had fallen in the storm, blocking the main entrance to the Children's Garden.

I'd just put my camera back in my knapsack as a rain squall blew in, when this hummer swooped in among the currant flowers. I'd been hoping to get a shot of a hummer on these California native flowers and was lucky this one stuck around just long enough for me to get my camera back out and shoot one frame.

It looks like the gardeners transplanted some of the pipevine plants from their old patch near an area under construction for greenhouse expansion. The pipevine is mainly twining into the currants on the northern edge of the California garden.

Garden Litter

The two white-fronted geese I recently saw hanging out with the Canadians at Blue Heron Lake were grazing in the Great Meadow with a group of their larger cousins this afternoon.

Green Heron Sticking Its Neck Out

Getting a Foothold

Bent Toe

Wind-ruffled Feathers

I thought he was just turning around, but by the time my viewfinder blackout ended after this shot, he had flown to the edge of the pond and out of sight behind a bunch of foliage.

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Green Heron

 

Green Heron at the Lily Pond, Golden Gate Park

Thanks to another photographer who was pointing her FZ80D at something in the Lily Pond, I finally got to see the green heron. I had just struck out trying to find the leucistic junco that was reported a few days ago around the Bunny Meadow, so the green heron was a most welcome sighting. 

A couple of ruby-crowned kinglets took turns hawking for insects over the pond, occasionally landing in a densely branched little tree near me. One of them was showing his ruby crown, and both had blackened feathers around their beaks. Yellow-rumped warblers also used the little tree as a hawking perch.

Magnolias in Forest Hill

The snowy egret was absent from Metson Lake when I rode by there today, replaced by this great blue heron.

The juncos were singing around the sunny Bunny Meadow.

Short Clip of Singing Junco

Ruby-crowned Kinglet at the Lily Pond

Check out this ruby-crowned kinglet's beak-adjacent feathers. I tried to google what's up with that, but all the answers were about captive birds and didn't seem to apply.

A yellow-rumper on the look-out for flying insects.

The green heron snags and eats its prey very quickly, but I got this one shot while its captive was still in its beak.

This is a tighter crop of the previous shot, showing the heron's gelatinous, fish-like prey.

Yellow-rumped warbler on a budding branch.

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