Townie & Downy

 

Townsend's Warbler, Golden Gate Heights

A hermit thrush and a townsend's warbler seemed to be companion-calling each other just outside the window. Each "chup" from the hermit was followed by a whistle-like "peep" from the townie. I grabbed my camera and went downstairs to investigate, thinking at first that the hermit was making both calls, which I'd never heard before.

I quietly stepped out onto the landing above our backyard garden area and could hear the hermit making its usual chup call from a hidden perch in our hazel tree, but it soon escaped into a neighbor's yard. That's when the townie flew into the scene, at first lighting on top of a grated metal security door on a another neighbor's house, apparently to check for spiders. Finding nothing of interest it fluttered over to the first neighbor's front-yard juniper tree where it again dug into a spider web (photo above).

When the townie flew out of sight I remained out back, enjoying the morning. I was also waiting to see if anyone interesting would fly into the neighbor's oak tree. I heard some tapping and soon spotted a downy woodpecker going to town on the branches of the oak. Usually when I've seen a downy in that oak, it remains too hidden by leaves and branches to photograph, or the backlight is too intense. I was happy to get a brief opportunity to snap a couple of shots this morning, but my joy was soon cut off, not by the bird flying away, but by the drizzling rain that began to fall on my lens.

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UCSF Redevelopment

 

Tearing down an old building at UCSF (9/29/2023).

I like photographs that show the passing of time. Over the last year I've watched in a kind of amazement as this old building was demolished to make way for a new one in its place. All the rubble of every kind that was produced in this demolition had to be carted off somewhere and either recycled or dumped as waste.

After the building was removed, the resulting "hole" was filled with many truckloads of dirt which had to come from somewhere I can only wonder about. It was "clean" dirt, mind you, not just random, pebble-strewn stuff. And then, after the mountain of dirt had been built, it too was gradually shaved back down. Maybe it was taken back from whence it came.

Construction is now proceeding from the new hole. 

We take such construction projects for granted as they happen all around us, but I'm sure the process of demolition is quite intricate, and I suspect the intricacy of rebuilding is greater by orders of magnitude. Watching this redevelopment reminds me of the first time I stepped aboard the aircraft carrier I was assigned to in the navy, where I was flabbergasted to contemplate the planning and execution of such intricate engineering.

The hole was filled with dirt which was then gradually removed until almost all of it was gone once again (12/15/2023).

The sides of the hole have been buttressed, and a narrow level created from the mountain of dirt has been created (9/19/2024).

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Hawk Moon

 

Red-tailed Hawk and Waning Moon

I saw the red-tail on Golden Gate Park's Murphy Windmill and, though I always enjoy seeing hawks up there, and though the blades were facing east instead of the usual west, there was nothing particularly striking about the scene. But when I biked past it and took a backward glance, I saw the moon and had to stop. I figured the hawk would be at "infinity" on my lens and that it would be a trivial matter to get both the hawk and the moon in focus. However, it didn't work out that way, so the image above is basically a focus-stack of two images.

Today's walking route took me past the scene of a fatal pedestrian accident that occurred the day after my recent post about the hazards posed by motor vehicles.

Last week this area near the south end of the Oak Woodland was taped off with a warning about a nearby wasp nest. At the time I figured the nest was in the tree stump, but I saw only honeybees going in and out that hole in the side. But today it looked like park staff burned the bees out of a subterranean nest. There were still a few honeybees poking around today, and I never saw any wasps.

Farther up the trail was a birdy little area where I was able to photograph this hermit thrush on an uncluttered branch and with an unobtrusive background. Hermits often make a little "chip-chip" sound, but today I heard two different sounds, including a loud, one-note whistle that I was surprised to track back to such a little bird. The other sound preceded chasing off an interloper. Neither was anywhere near the song the hermit thrush is famous for.

A townsend's warbler was also in the birdy tree, along with juncos and sparrows, and another of those Bewick's wrens I saw earlier this month (which eluded me today).

Black phoebe on its hawking perch.

The chicken-of-the woods on Whiskey Hill is coming along. I'll update it on the original post as it grows.

Although it looks like the raven is saying "Caw!" it's actually using raven click-language by snapping its beak.

A snowy egret was hunting like a shorebird in front of Sutro Baths today.

I watched it at work for quite a while, and I might have stayed longer if not for my belly insisting it was my own lunch time.

Salty Snacks Near Sutro Baths

Today's light offshore wind brought out droves of surfers.

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Fall Color

 

Garden Variety Fall Color, Forest Hill

The fall color has developed quite a bit since last week. This might be the peak for this little stretch of sidewalk....

As I biked out of Golden Gate Park and turned north onto the Great Highway this morning, the first thing I noticed was a column of smoke emanating from Mt. Tamalpais. It looked too big to be a prescribed burn, but that's exactly what it was (my wife found the notice on Twitter).

Checking it out from the Cliff House, I was surprised to spook up a yellow-rumped warbler. It fluttered away, but not very far, so I tried to see what it was up to from a respectful distance. It was hawking -- darting out from shrubbery, or sometimes the cliff face, to snag insects on the wing. I wondered if it was catching those slightly annoying little flies that often seem to hang out there.

High tide has drifted off to a new time of day, leaving the Cliff House tidepool rock available. Instead of black oystercatchers bathing in it, there was a group of black turnstones, which are even more camouflaged than the oystercatchers from above (no showy orange beaks either).

Back at home I found a caterpillar hanging from the surface of our exterior hallway. I put it up on iNaturalist and they came up with "brush-footed butterflies."

Fire on the Mountain

Yellow-rumped Warbler, Cliff House

Leaping into Flight

Black Turnstone at Cliff House Tidepool

Bathing Turnstones

Splash Chaos

Possible brush-footed butterfly caterpillar.

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Coyote Story

 

G-Dog, the Grandview Park Coyote

I don't know if this is the same female coyote I saw on the day the comet didn't come out to play. I don't even know if this coyote is female since it only pooped but didn't pee. Hence the gender-nonspecific name of G-Dog (G-Wiz came in second).

Tuesday's walk is the one that covers parts of the Sunset Parkway and Golden Gate Park in addition to Grandview Park (and the Hidden Garden Steps), and all of today's photos came just from the walk, which took three hours. By the time I got home I wasn't sure if I still had the energy for a bike ride, but the day just doesn't seem complete without both the walk and the ride, so off I went. Thankfully I wasn't tempted to take out my camera even once on the ride.

At first glance I wondered if someone had just put up one of those fake owls to scare pigeons away. But then I saw its head move.

Red-shouldered Hawk, Noriega Street, Outer Sunset

Who can resist photographing a resting bluebird? For a sense of scale, note the ant near the bird's right foot ;)....

The bluebird's partner was kind enough to stand in profile to show off its brilliant blue feathers.

This townsend's warbler was feeding tantalizingly close to me in a cypress tree, yet it moved around so quickly, and was so often concealed behind leaves and branches, that it was very hard to photograph.

And of course the one time I caught it out in the open, its eyes were invisible.

For all the time I spent craning my neck to try to get the perfect shot, I gave up to try another day when it flew high into another tree.

Instead, I settled for this house finch who at least knew how to stand still in the nice morning light.

I saw this red-shouldered hawk swoop to the ground near Elk Glen Lake and went over to investigate. I snapped this photo just as it was about to leap into flight.

It didn't go very far before finding a perch. At first I was behind the hawk and photographed it with strong backlight, then I was able to move around and catch it in sidelight, and it still hadn't flown away when I got around to its front, so I got this shot -- doing its KEER! KEER! KEER! thing to boot -- that was preferable to all the others.

I'd spent quite a bit of time at Elk Glen Lake trying to photograph townsends and yellow warblers, a brown creeper, and a western flycatcher, all of which were foraging on an oak tree in terrible light and with lots of cover. I didn't get a single keeper. Heading home via the Hidden Garden Steps I was reminded of what I saw last week -- that the parks department had cleared leaves from the steps and the rain gutter, and had ripped out the foxglove in the process.

Of course I was hoping to see a coyote when I reached Grandview Park, and I was delighted/stoked when I actually did.

I lost track of the coyote when it ducked behind some coyote brush, so I had to climb the stairs to get above it, and I was glad once again to spot it in some deep grass.

The coyote appeared to be heading for the exit near the bottom of the hill where 14th and 15th avenues come together, when this guy came along with his dog. I'm sure they never noticed the coyote, which was downwind of the dog.

The coyote decided to stick around after all, and took care of some business...

...before heading back out on the hunt for gophers.

Although its pounce was unsuccessful, subsequent digging eventually netted this poor gopher.

Sometimes a coyote will give you a funny look.

I began the walk with a hawk perched on an apartment building and ended with a coyote in the street, taking a detour around some blackberry bramble. The urban wild life.

* * *

Sunny Day

 

Bison on the Green

Despite today's sunny warmth, I caught several episodes of "Grrrrr" on my mind, having endured the usual close calls with motorists that pedestrians and cyclists deal with almost every day in San Francisco. I feel like there's a cumuative thing going on with how I feel about it, since I trained myself many years ago to respond to the stress of close calls without getting angry. But that was back when I was bike-commuting to work, pre-pandemic. I wasn't also putting in daily miles as a pedestrian. [UPDATE: The very next day, a man was struck and killed in the crosswalk along one of my weekly walking routes.]

Anyway. I know the "problem" motorists (that minority of the careless, the distracted, the clueless, and worst of all, the aggressive) aren't going to become better drivers anytime soon, so I'll just have to up my stress-response game to better enjoy these beautiful days.

A lone lesser goldfinch braved a return to the bathing puddle near the Bison Paddock, where a dozen or so of them had just taken off for some nearby trees after I stopped my bike.

Seal Rocks with a setting, waning moon hanging faintly in the sky. We awoke to a dark and foggy morning, but it all cleared out by around 10:30.

I pulled over when I saw a red-shafted flicker dart from somewhere near this pokeberry bush, wondering if it had been eating the berries. As I waited in vain for it to return, this hermit thrush came to check things out (and did not eat a berry).

The hermit flew from the pokeberry (poisonous to humans) to a dried stalk of poison hemlock (even more poisonous to humans).

Another hemit was in the bowl when I first looked down there, but it took off as soon as I showed myself, making the junco very happy.

Dark-eyed junco fanning its wing feathers in the pool of water.

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