Black-Throated Gray Warbler

 

Black-throated Gray Warbler, Forest Hill

When I first saw it foraging among the leaves of a street tree I was excited because I thought it might be a mountain chickadee. When I got a better look and saw that it was a GBGB bird, I prayed ISO 800 would be enough to get a sharp image of it. Out of the eight frames I was able to get before it flew into someone's back yard, only the one above was decent. However, I'm not above posting "indecent" shots too, so there's one more shot below.

The fog finally rolled back in last night. I could hear the trees dripping outside. Note the wet feathers on the bird above, after foraging among wet leaves.

Ripening Figs

Haunted Fire Alarm

Haunted Forest

I'd tried and failed to get a shot of a hermit thrush during my walk through Golden Gate Heights Park, but I saw one bathing in our back yard when I got home. A smaller junco was perched nearby, waiting for the hermit to finish.

The World's Most Laid-back Bison

Bathing Finches

The Giant Camera was open during those sunny days, but I don't think it got much action even with the warm weather. Makes me wonder how long it will remain in this spot.

Pelicans outnumbered surfers about a thousand-to-one today....

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Elk Glen Lake

 

Yellow-rumped Warbler, Elk Glen Lake

I did my new walk through the park today without seeing any coyotes in the general area of where I saw a male and a female last week. I was a little disappointed, but I figure I'm unlikely to see them every week. At 25th Avenue I walked over to Elk Glen Lake to see what birds might be around, and I soon saw a black phoebe tangle with a yellow-rumped warbler that might have been going after the same moth.

Once I got the camera out, I ended up spending more than an hour observing birds, and I even got a quick coyote encounter. 

The heat wave seems to have passed, and it was a beautiful day to be out and about.

Yellow-rumper on a rush stalk.

Reflections on Elk Glen Lake

Pygmy nuthatches are one of the more ubiquitous birds I encounter in the park. They tend to travel in noisy groups, almost like bushtits, and they are not as afraid of people as many other common birds like sparrows and finches.

Which isn't to say they love having camera lenses pointed right at them.... 

I wondered if this was the same GBH who caught the mouse last week.

Lots of red-winged blackbirds have been signing around the lakes lately. Most of the birds were lost in the tules, but this one had taken up a perch at the top of a bare tree, the better to broadcast his song.

A Townsend's warbler with a freshly caught moth.

The bottoms of oak leaves seemed to be a good place to find insects to eat.

At first I thought she was someone's dog ambling along the trail.

She made a quick, short pounce but came up empty.

She also decided to get off the trail right about here.

Yellow warbler with oak leaves.

Townie

Yeller Feller

Townie in brighter light.

I was excited to spot a brown creeper working its way up the oak tree.

They tend to be in the shade, and well-camouflaged.

I was a block from home when I stopped to watch another group of pygmy nuthatches. This one appears to have a seed in its beak, but earlier I watched one of the nuthatches use a pine needle to probe into crevices of tree bark, presumably hoping to dislodge insects.

Looking out back before getting on my bike, I spotted two of our neighborhood squirrels hanging out together on my neighbor's lilly pilly tree. The vines are from a fuchsia that he's got climbing around his yard (some of which I've also planted in mine since hummers like the flowers).

Lots of bird action on and around Seal Rocks today.

A few pelicans were even diving for fish, but I wasn't able to catch one in the act. Groups of gulls would surround each diving pelican, hoping to get a morsel for themselves.

Dog Walkers

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Morning Light

 

Hot Sky Morning

When's the last time it was cool enough to sleep under the bed covers? I like warmth, but 85 degrees in the house is too much of a good thing. As this morning's dawn brought another beautiful sky, the "cool" night air had only brought us down to 80 degrees. 

Until the last couple of years, I could always count on the fog to come in after a maximum of three really hot days. Hot air inland would suck the fog in, almost as if it were a law of physics. So what happened?! I know the laws of physics didn't change, and I can only wonder if warmer ocean temperatures are to blame.

As I was eating lunch a little while ago, trying to decide whether I should close the west-facing windows before the sun started beating down on them, the curtains suddenly caught a breeze. They haven't budged in days, so I can only hope things are finally about to change for the cooler.

Out for my walk this morning I was surprised by a pair of woodpeckers who flew into a lone tree way down in the Avenues on Noriega Street. One quickly flew across the street, but I managed to grab a couple shots of the other one, first in the tree, then on a nearby telephone pole. I've seen the same species a couple of times recently but haven't been able to find a match for it online. So I went old-school and looked in one of our field guides (Northern California Birds by Herbert Clarke). Bingo! 

Hot Feathers

Just up from Los Angeles, the HMM Emerald heads for the Port of Oakland. I liked that someone had put chairs down on the beach. They look like the chairs that have popped up in parts of Golden Gate Park.

I was surprised to see a foil surfer this morning. I'm not sure I've seen one at Ocean Beach before.

Starling on Noriega Street

Nuttall's Woodpecker

Nuttall's climbing a telephone pole.

Fast-moving mystery warbler.

I stopped to watch a large group of bushtits that flew into a tree at North Lake, then noticed their frequent followers, the chickadees and Townsend's warblers, as well as some other tiny warbler(s) I couldn't identify.  

This red-shouldered hawk caught my attention as it flew low across JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park, then landed on a low pine branch. It finally turned its head enough for me to get a catch-light in its eye, then flew to a new branch.

As I prepared to get back on my bike, a visitor asked me if that had been a hawk or a falcon. I told him what it was, and that they were fairly common in the park, and that he might hear one scream. I hoped one would oblige me at that exact moment, but no such luck. Less than a minute later, though, another one screamed beautifully, and I could only wonder if the visitor had heard it too.

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Garden Bodhisattva

 

Fallen Hazel Leaves

Looks like the hot, dry weather is hastening the leaf-drop in our backyard hazel tree. Normally there wouldn't be so much leaf litter until November.

I was hoping to head up to Lake Tahoe to check out the kokanee salmon spawning in Taylor Creek this coming week, but apparently there is a sandbar preventing the fish from going up, and the bar will only be washed away by a water release from Fallen Leaf Lake.

From what I gather online, fall color has been going off nicely in the mountains above Bishop, and even as far north as Conway Summit. It's also cooler in the mountains, and downright chilly at night, and that sounds pretty good right now, as it's 80.9 degrees here at my computer desk. 

Besides the heat, I'm also feeling nagged by this Official Ballot sitting in front of me which I kind of dread having to fill out. So many decisions have to be made based on very imperfect information, making it an unappealing duty (as, I suppose, many duties are). 

Which reminds me that I just read Yuval Noah Harari's excellent book Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI. It's a great reminder that "information" isn't necessarily true, and that information networks mold the way we see and experience the world.

Hazel Leaves & Growing Catkins

Faded Bouquet

Object of Contemplation

Subject of Contemplation

Enlightenment

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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 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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