Middle Lake

Newly Opened Middle Lake, Golden Gate Park

The Parks Department did a great job of fixing up Middle Lake over the last couple of years, and they have finally removed the fencing and opened it up to the public. It was fun to walk around the lake and remember how it used to be. I kind of enjoyed the unkempt wildness of it in the old days (including a mess of feral cats that hid in the bushes), but now it looks more like the city actually gives a damn about it. 

Flowing Creek at Middle Lake

It looks like they even put some native plants along the creek, which drains from the fly-fishing pools above.

It'll be interesting to see how the plantings fill in. 

First Impressions

The brown pelicans have disappeared again, leaving the rocks to the cormorants. Meanwhile, the Hong Kong-flagged bulk carrier, Iwagi Island, is coming out of the fog and heading for the sun in Stockton, where it's about 30 degrees warmer.

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Nature Walk

 

Fire-Colored Sunflower, Strybing Arboretum Children's Garden

The plan was to take a walk down the hill through the neighborhood, then into Golden Gate Park where I'd walk an arc through Strybing Arboretum and up to Blue Heron Lake, then circle back up 9th Avenue. I brought the FZ80 along but wasn't sure I'd even take it out of my knapsack. 

Well, I never made it to Blue Heron Lake. The camera did come out, and it stayed out, as many subjects caught my interest. However, I might still have made it to the lake if I hadn't spotted the California red-legged frogs and the Pacific wren. After spending time with those two I was getting a mite peckish and decided to head home for lunch.

One of the things I love about San Francisco is that any walk can be a nature walk. I often won't choose to photograph the things I notice, but my eyes and ears (and sometimes my nose) are always attuned to my surroundings, and being a lover of underdogs makes me appreciate city nature all the more.

Red Admiral butterfly trying desperately to eke out some warmth from a fog-shrouded sun on a wood-chip path.

I believe this Chickadee is eating sap.

Scolding Hummers

There were many more water lilies blooming today than there were on my last visit.

Lots of honeybees were out collecting pollen and nectar.

I'm still waiting to capture a monarch butterfly (or caterpillar) on the narrowleaf milkweed plants in the California Garden.

The California buckeye's flowers are just about done on this tree, but some of the others around the park are still going strong.

Coming in for a landing....

Honeybee and Aloe Flowers

The California Pipevine plant in my yard came from the Strybing Arboretum nursery, and right now it's full of flowers. So it was flowers that I was looking for within the small remnant of pipevine that didn't get torn out during construction of the new nursery buildings...

...but instead of finding flowers, I spotted a few pipevine swallowtail caterpillars munching away on the pipevine's leaves. This caterpillar appears to have been preyed upon, or otherwise become injured or maybe just developed poorly. That also looks like some other kind of insect egg next to it on the leaf.

Sorrel, ginger, and bleeding heart in the redwood grove.

I think this sub-adult red-shouldered hawk was squawking so much because it was hungry and expecting a parent to swing by with a nice mouse for lunch.

There were several sunflowers with spectacular coloration in the Children's Garden...

...as well as the more traditional yellow (which the honeybee seemed to prefer).

The Children's Garden has really come along. It used to look semi-abandoned, or very little-used, but now it's full of plants and fun paths through it all. And not only that...

...but there are California red-legged frogs in the pond now. The pond used to be choked with water weeds to the point where you could hardly see the surface of the water.

After noticing that I could now see into the pond, I soon spotted a tadpole swimming around, and then I started looking for adults.

It didn't take long to find some.

This might be a juvenile Pacific wren (as opposed to an adult), as it appears to be a little incomplete, especially in the tail-feather department. It didn't have any trouble singing or flying, though.

Chilean Rhubarb Leaf

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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.)

The parks department came through to clear out the gutter in October, and the foxglove was pulled out and cast aside. This was 10/15/24.

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