Last Tango on Tam

 

Sonoma Chipmunk on Cataract Trail, Mt. Tamalpais

We wanted to have one more hike on Mt. Tam before our next undertaking. It could be several months before we get up there again. The day was perfect for a hike, with a good breeze and cool temps. We headed down the Cataract Trail from Rock Spring, picked up the Mickey O'Brien Trail to Barth's Retreat, then the fire road to Potrero Meadow and onward to Rifle Camp before circling back on Lagunitas-Rock Spring Road and the Benstein Trail. 

Lots of birdsong in the forest. My wife was checking her Merlin app quite a bit and picked up black-throated gray warbler, wrentit, Cassin's vireo, warbling vireo, orange-crowned warbler, Wilson's warbler, yellow-rumped warbler, acorn woodpecker, California quail, Steller's jay,  purple finch, spotted towhee, red-crossbill, red-breasted nuthatch, olive-sided and western flycatcher, and of course junco and chickadee.

Meadow of Dried Grasses Near Trailhead

A few California quail were hanging out near the spring, but took off in alarm as we passed by.

Quail in the Chain Fern

Quail Clip with Sound

Stumpy the Lizard

I couldn't quite make out what the fella with the long tail was eating, but it appeared to be some kind of seedy fruit. Probably a blackberry, even though I didn't see a blackberry bush anywhere nearby.

Dogtail Grass

Oxeye Daisy

This is the big meadow half-way to Laurel Dell, still looking pretty lush. There were just a few foxgloves in bloom.

This might be teneral (immediately after molting) male vivid dancer.

Spotted Coralroot Gone to Seed

Dogtail Grass

The wild honeysuckle was just coming into bloom on the Mickey O'Brien Trail.

Sitting in the shade at Barth's Retreat, we watched numerous California sister butterflies fluttering around. I caught this one during a brief warm-up on a bay laurel leaf.

Lizard Basking in a Flowering Chamise Bush

Mating Grappletail Dragonflies at Potrero Meadow

Another shot of the grappletails mating. The male is clinging to meadow rue.

Blue-belly Duo

Woodland Skipper Nectaring on a Yellow Mariposa Lily, Rifle Camp Meadow

This acorn woodpecker landed low on an acorn granary tree right next to the trail, giving me a nice pose.

This is the same guy after going around to the other side of the tree where it grabbed an acorn and took off.

No, this is not a geocache, but a funeral urn, oddly placed in the open near the Rock Spring picnic area.

We stopped at the picnic tables to absorb the gorgeous day for just a little longer.

A pair of turkey vultures wheeled over the adjacent meadow.

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The Berry Eater

 

Raccoon In Blackberry Thicket, North Lake

After listening to a show on the radio this morning I wondered if the cure for a lot of life's dissatisfactions could be as simple as cultivating an authentic sense of gratitude for one's life as it is. If you're bored with climbing the ladder solely in pusuit of more money and whatever self-respect you hope to buy with that money, try climbing the ladder toward greater gratitude. Or simply be kinder to yourself and the people close to you. Learn a new language or how to play a musical instrument. Take up nature photography!

I don't know. More and more I come back to gratitude being a superpower, and a superpower that anybody can cultivate. It slays boredom, self-pity, anxiety -- you name it.

I wasn't sure I was going to have any photos to post today. During my walk I was drawn to patterns of tree bark. Birds are a great doorway into nature, but even something as simple as patterns can slow us down enough to look more closely, or from a different perspective. Nevertheless, looking for patterns to photograph can be hit-or-miss, and I wasn't sure how I'd feel about the patterns once I got home and opened them up in Photoshop.

But then, as I was tooling around North Lake on my bike, I spotted a raccoon in a tree that was tangled with blackberry vines. I gingerly got off my bike and got out my camera, and the raccoon stayed put! Eventually it even resumed hunting for berries. So I ended up having a post afterall, thanks to something a little cuter, if less cerebral, than tree bark.

The cells that make wood are dead at maturity. They literally grow up to die, to support the rest of the plant. This pocked specimen is from a weathered stump near the south entrance to the Oak Woodlands in Golden Gate Park.

Oak Bark

Eucalyptus Bark

Song Sparrow Walks On Water

I wondered if this was the same great blue heron I saw in a tree at Lily Lake last week. A cormorant was having some success hunting underwater, but I didn't see the heron make a single strike.

A few of the water lilies are still blooming, but if you're looking specifically for water lilies, you might also try the lily pond in the San Francisco Botanical Garden.

The heron didn't seem to move a muscle for several minutes. I wondered if it would be content to catch a mere minnow, or if it was waiting for something bigger to swim by.

Leaf Patterns at the National AIDS Memorial Grove

Bark Patterns, Whiskey Hill

A daddy longlegs photobombs my bark pattern.

Cute!

I was a little surprised the raccoon was all by itself.

I've snagged a few blackberries myself the last couple of weeks, especially at Grandview Park. I still remember a great berry patch in my neighborhood that unfortunately got dug up to make room for a new house. (Surprisingly, there still are a couple of empty lots around.)

As the raccoon wandered into deep cover, I heard a cooper's hawk calling nearby and went to investigate.

Raccoon & Cooper's Hawk

Another chilly, windy day on the west side of the city again today. This is the gull's nest that used to be near the black oystercatcher nest, before the oystercatchers abandoned it. I did wonder why I saw two oystercatchers for a few days, then only one for a few more days, and then none. A solo bird is never going to be able to hatch and raise chicks out in the open like that, with all those gulls about. Maybe the first one left because the foraging wasn't good enough.

There was very little bird activity on Seal Rocks this morning. The lack of birds and the chilly gray day gave no cause to linger. I'm going to miss it anyway.

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Juvenile Black Phoebe

 

Young Black Phoebe at Cliff House

As I was looking for shorebirds on the beach below the Cliff House this morning (and seeing not a single one) I noticed what looked like a black phoebe. Sort of. I guess I'd never really seen (or photographed) a juvenile before. I thought I saw two of them at first, but one flew off and didn't come back. The still images in this post show both birds, both juveniles. I hung out for a while (though not as long as I would have had it been sunny and warm), but no adult came to feed them.

Video Clip of Preening Juvenile Black Phoebe

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Salvia Lovers

 

Anna's Hummingbird at Elk Glen Lake

Way back as a botany student in Santa Barbara I had a part-time job where I sat next to a fun and interesting young woman (younger than me) of Mexican descent whose brother was a botanist. One day Rosa excitedly told me that her brother had discovered and described a new desert plant that became named for him. The way she pronounced it went by me, so she wrote it down: s-a-l-v-i-l-l-a. I was still perplexed until I realized with joy that she was spelling it in phonetic Spanish (and putting the accent on the second syllable when she spoke it). It's funny, the things we remember forever, and I still smile at the memory.

As I wind down my San Francisco nature project this week I can't help looking forward to what will come next. One thing I was reminded of yesterday while shooting on Mt. Tam was how satisfying it is to shoot with a full-frame camera and a tripod (which takes nothing away from the satisfaction of shooting hand-held with a compact camera). The other thing on my mind lately is how my San Francisco forays have deepened my appreciation for the nature we have here, thanks to sizeable and well-kept parks, and both ocean and bay coastlines.

Because I photograph the same routes week after week -- my walking and biking routes, that is -- I like to think of those routes as transects. I encounter and photograph whatever shows itself to me, rather than hunting for anything specific. As gratifying as that has been, I can't help feeling a desire to go deeper on something, even though I don't know yet what that would be.

Enlarging my transects to the whole state of California seems appealing while I'm sitting at home, but less so when I'm driving in heavy traffic, looking for shaded refuge on a scorching day, or burning up a lot of miles with little to show for it. Hopefully the coming break will provide the time and space to let the next idea take form and seep into my spirit.

This was one of several mourning doves pecking in the dirt along the Sunset Parkway this morning. When I turned my back to slyly get my camera out of my knapsack, all the doves flew away except this brave soul.

A raven drinks from the little creek above Mallard Lake.

Handsome Fellow

I was surprised to see a mallard hen sitting placidly on top of this tree stump. She raised her head a bit as I approached but that was it. She was comfy and wasn't going to let me spoil anything just by showing up.

The Hen of Contentment

The hummer shared this patch of Mexican bush sage (Salvia leucantha) with the bumblebees for quite some time without being chased off by a rival or being spooked by a nearby photographer.

I've passed this patch many times, but today was the first time I've been able to photograph a hummer there.

I was surprised to find this lone jimson weed growing above Elk Glen Lake. This is Datura stramonium, which used to grow in abundance in Mt. Tam's Potrero Meadow before it all faded away.

There were patches of baby blue eyes around the jimson weed.

With a few tidy tips sprinkled in as well.

A couple of red-winged blackbirds foraged for grass seeds around the margins of Elk Glen Lake.

I detoured to the big patch of red Salvia gesneriiflora flowers again this week and found the same Allen's hummingbird presiding over it.

He briefly fed on some of the flowers, but too far back in the patch for me to get a clear view. While I was there, an older street guy approached as he was improbably pushing one of those very thin scooters weighted down with his backpack along the sandy trail. Hard work! He was talking to himself and smelled of unwashed clothes and alcohol, but he stopped to chat for a while and remarked on how much the big red Salvia has grown over the years.

This noisy young fledgeling was begging for food, but I couldn't tell what kind of bird it was.

At least, not until its song sparrow parent showed up.

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