Mountain Menagerie

 

Blacktail Buck

It was nice to have all the usual suspects show up at least once since I put the trail cams back on the mountain a few weeks ago. The deer above seemed to be looking for the good-sized pool of water that existed here last year, a pool that was filled with rocks and sand by a stormy deluge. There's very little left of the pool (which is slightly outside the lower right corner of the frame), but in the video below, a gray fox scampers off the log to go there for a drink.

Flicker

Bobcat

Coyote

Same Coyote

Gray Fox

Pileated Woodpecker

Raccoon

Gray Squirrel

Raccoon

Tam Cam Video Clips

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Killdeer Was Here

 

Killdeer, Richardson Bay

There were a couple of great blue herons and a great egret working the Richardson Bay mud flats during low tide on my way up to Mt. Tamalpais. Otherwise, not too much action out there.

It's been a while since I've made the trip via e-bike, and I was disappointed that there weren't any black-necked stilts in their usual area around Coyote Creek. On the way home, the bay had filled in with the high tide, but there was still surprisingly little bird life. When I heard a killdeer call, I pulled over to say hello.

I hadn't planned to ride up there and check the trail cams until next month, but with a slight chance of rain showers in the forecast I was concerned about one of the cams that I'd placed in the dry creek bed. Most likely it would have been fine, but if the rain turned out to be heavy enough to get the creek flowing, the camera could end up ruined or washed away.

P.S. Watch Flyways on Kanopy!

It was windy, foggy, and cool up around Rock Spring, giving the mountain a change-of-season feel.

Last time I was up there I thought the rosinweed was just about done for the season, but today it was still going great.

Even the usually chatty acorn woodpeckers were mostly quiet today, as fog billowed over the treetops and a strong wind rattled the dry grass and swept through the forest.

The killdeer allowed me to stop quite close to them.

They kept an eye on me, but what they really wanted to do...

...was return to siesta time.

They both lay down and stayed that way, even as I put the camera away in the bike bag and continued on my way.

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Light Show

 

We had a rare fog-free view from sunrise to sunset on 8/20,
the day of the Blue Supermoon.

One of the effects of having a fog-free evening is the "firelight" show that takes place in the spooky confines of the dense eucalyptus forest that covers this part of Mt. Sutro. The show is better in real life because the orange "flames" flicker as the trees sway in the breeze. Should that forest ever catch fire for real -- especially on a windy day -- damage to the city would likely rival the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. (The orange lights are caused by the sunset reflecting in the windows of houses behind the trees.)

Here's what the reflections look like on windows not blocked by the forest. This is a composite image of a supermoon and a sunset that took place on March 14, 2014. IRL, the moon came up too far to the right of the frame to be in the shot. Ten years later, this view no longer exists due to the growing forest.

I was surprised to learn that last night's supermoon (shot here with the FZ80) was also a blue moon. I hadn't known that more than one kind of blue moon exists.

The kind I was familiar with occurs when there are two full moons in the same month. But the blue moon can also be the third full moon in a season (e.g., summer) that has four full moons instead of the usual three.

But why, you may ask, isn't the first, second, or fourth moon the blue one? Turns out it must be the third one, "Because only then will the names of the other full Moons, such as the Moon Before Yule and the Moon After Yule, fall at the proper times relative to the solstices and equinoxes."

Got it?

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Bird Life

 

Western Bluebird on Oak Branch, Sunset Boulevard

We woke up to a rare bluebird day in the offing this morning, so I brought the FZ80 along on today's walk, part of which follows the greenway along Sunset Boulevard. I'd encountered a lot of birds there last week but only had my phone cam, so I was glad there was still a good amount of activity today.

At the optometrist yesterday I had the option of getting my eyes dilated or having a retinal image made. Dilation was covered by insurance, but I chose to fork out $40 for the retinal image, and it was worth it. I could have stared at those pictures a lot longer. Looking at the blood vessels and whatnot suspended in the vitreous humor was like staring at a galaxy far, far away, except that it was a micro-cosmos built by the awe-inspiring biological genius of life itself.

Bark 'n Bluebird

Blue Sky Bluebird

Finch Nibbling Thistle Seeds

Finch and Sow Thistle

The Thistle King

The Scarlet King

Pygmy Nuthatches Working the Crevices

Finch Beak

Solitary Nuthatch

I'm guessing this is also a finch, not a sparrow. I love that it looks so plain at first glance but is actually intricately patterned and has a nice golden hue in its feathers.

The Norwegian-flagged Island Pride, an offshore support vessel, was heading out to sea this morning. That's a helipad on the bow.

There were only a couple of surf scoters between the Cliff House and Seal Rocks this morning, and no wandering tattlers, black turnstones, or oystercatchers. Plenty of pelicans catching updrafts from the surf, though. I brought binoculars to look for the storied brown boobie out on Seal Rocks but did not spot it.

Cruising Altitude

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City Life

 

Anna's Hummingbird, Golden Gate Park

Matilija Poppy with Fog Dew

Pipevine Swallowtail Caterpillar

Narrowleaf Milkweed & Friend

Red Tailed Hawk with Fog Dew

Red Legged Frog Tadpole

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Mission Drift

 

Pelicans Drifting Past Cliff House

Back in 2014 I deleted all my posts going back to 2007 with the intention of turning the blog into a "Year of Mt. Tam" project. But after the year was over, I kept on going, although I started and mainly worked on a Pt. Reyes blog during the next year. After that year was over I deleted the Pt. Reyes blog. Then there was a year where I didn't post anything at all, followed by another re-start with no particular project in mind.

Frankly, I'm surprised I'm still going. I thought my relatively recent drift into using the FZ80 point-and-shoot signaled the start of a downhill slide to oblivion, but then I slid even lower by including phone pix! And yet, I'm still having fun.

Nevertheless, without any particular project to work on (other than the No Project Project), I honestly don't know from one day to the next if that day's post will be my last. 

The sky was clear when I went to bed last night...

...but sometime in the wee hours the fog rolled in, and an especially wet fog at that.

I watched this bird bob its tail and a little question mark popped into my head. Maybe this isn't a surfbird. I googled it and, sure enough, surfbirds don't bob their tails, but wandering tattlers do. Also, the slender beak on this guy is another giveaway.

More and more surf scoters have been showing up below the Cliff House. Watching them dive under the waves in pursuit of their prey, I'm sometimes amazed that they don't get wiped out, especially when they'e in the impact zone right at the edge of the beach. As I was watching today I was surprised to see a Heermann's gull dive-bomb a scoter twice. Both times the scoter ducked under the water to escape. [UPDATE: There have been reports of Parasitic Jaegers in that area, and I wouldn't be surprised if I mistook a jaeger for a gull.]

* * *

Coyote Schedule

 

Smile E. Coyote, Golden Gate Park

I was riding the same route as yesterday, taking the bike detour around the Outside Lands concert deconstruction, when today I encountered the coyote again in exactly the same place. Once again I was able to tag along a little bit. The whole area between MLK Drive and Middle Drive must be pretty good coyote habitat.

Coyote Eating A Gopher

This was an impressively long jump, but whatever he was after got away.

I had to wonder in this moment whether the coyote recognized me from yesterday....

Good-looking animal. I just read this morning that 760 dog bites were reported in the city last year, which I guess shows how many dog-bites it takes to make the news, while even one coyote-bite gets saturation coverage. 

Until this morning I hadn't seen a great blue heron in the park in quite a while. This one was hunting in South Lake.

You don't see cormorants gliding very often.

A beautiful day at Seal Rocks...

...and Ocean Beach.

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