Hawks vs. Ravens

 

Red-tailed Hawks Circling Above the Bison Paddock
(Composite image.)

I guess the 2025 California fire season has already begun, at least around Los Angeles. Pretty crazy to see such horrible wildfires in January, and early January to boot. Lying in bed last night, windows rattling in the wind, I went over my own emergency bail-out plans before falling asleep. I hate to think what would happen downwind of any wildfire sparked in the dense eucalyptus groves of Mt. Sutro.

I've been seeing pairs of red-tails circling and screeching together recently, sometimes with at least one of them dangling their yellow legs, talons outstretched. I have yet to get my camera out in time to catch them though.

I've been enjoying the weather by sitting out back for a while to relax after my walk and bike ride. Today I heard pecking in my neighbor's oak tree and went to investigate. A pair of ravens were the only critters in the tree. 

One flew away as soon as it saw me, but the other one gave me a scolding before it, too, flew away (but not very far; they were both back soon after I left).

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Hey Mergie

 

Hooded Merganser at Metson Lake

Mergansers, or "Mergies," always remind me of the late Bay Area jazz guitarist Calvin Keys (he died last April) and his song, "Mrkgy." In the CD version the song starts with Calvin saying, "Hey Mrkgy," so that's how I know it's pronounced as if it was short for merganser....

I heard or read in the news this morning that eggs are now nine bucks a dozen because of bird flu. I rarely eat eggs anymore, but I guess that's a lot to pay. Years ago I used to get the fanciest eggs sold at Rainbow Grocery for around $12 a dozen, so $9 doesn't seem that bad to me. But I guess restaurant owners and others are complaining about the inflationary prices. Meanwhile, another article mentioned how much of the state is "abnormally dry" or in "moderate drought," and there's no rain in the forecast for a while. In addition to bird flu and drought, we've also got potential deportations coming up for many folks who do a lot of our farm labor. Almost seems like a "perfect storm" brewing up for grocery prices.

I wasn't surprised to see this handsome white-crowned sparrow chirping from its lovely perch this morning...

...but I was a little surprised to see this hermit thrush chupping out in the open (along with a second one that I couldn't see). It's funny to think that the hermit will eventually trade in its lowly chup-chup calls for Pan pipes.

Hermit in the Eucalyptus

This caterpillar was scootching along the sidewalk when it found some delicious dewy grass growing in a crack. I was surprised it was out on such a cold and foggy morning.

I've been attracted to this tree's silhouette out my bedroom window and finally grabbed my camera when a crow landed in there to give it a little added interest. Unfortunately, the crow moved forward before I could get a shot off, slightly obscuring its shape.

I was on the eastern edge of the Bison Paddock when I stopped my bike to check out a couple of woodpecker calls. The woodpeckers were too far away, but then I noticed this hummingbird on a thin rope on the other side of the paddock's chain-link fence right in front of me. The bright orange in the background is from a traffic/safety cone inside the paddock.

I walked up to the fence and stuck my lens through for this shot, and the hummer was gracious enough not to fly away.

When I got back to my bike I remembered to check my mileage. I was at 14,997 when I left home and was glad to see I caught the round number before tipping over to 15,001. I'll have had the ebike for six years in March, so I'm still averaging about 2,500 miles a year, the same as when I rode downtown to work every day. Needless to say, my rides are much more fun now....

Red-tail Drying Out in the Fog

The red-tail was on a lamp post near the Cliff House, so I wondered whether it was a tagged hawk I've photographed before. A close-up of its legs showed no tags, though.

Seeing the caterpillar in the morning reminded me of the little things I miss while I'm biking around looking for birds, so I stopped at Metson Lake to check out the dried cattail stalks. The fluffy flower heads were interesting, but I didn't see any dragonflies or other insects clinging to leaves or stalks.

However, on the other side of the cattails I heard some splashing that turned out to be a bathing beauty -- a female hooded merganser.

She had the whole lake to herself, unless you include the black phoebe that was hawking from branches sticking out of the water.

Ta-da!

Brief video clip of the mergie preening after bathing.

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Flocks

 

Sanderlings on the Wing off Marshall's Beach

I noticed the 150-200 sanderlings foraging on a sandy portion of Marshall's Beach from high above them on Lincoln Boulevard. They had a great stretch of beach -- probably the only stretch of beach in San Francisco today that was empty of people -- until the tide came in and sent the whole flock whirling in circles before finally alighting on an offshore rocky outcrop just south of Helmet Rock (no doubt named for the helmet of white guano that covers the cone-shaped sea stack). Google Maps doesn't show a name for the nondescript outcrop.

Just offshore were decent numbers of cormorants on Helmet Rock, plus lots of surf scoters and Clark's grebes lazily floating and preening in fairly calm ocean conditions just north of the rock.

This was the waxing crecent moon and Venus as they appeared from my living room window on Jan. 3. They were much farther apart the next night, and I wish I'd thought to look for them when they were closer together. The diameter of Venus is actually about four-times greater than our moon's, but it's also about 100-times farther away. 

The sea lion appeared to be waiting for someone to toss down a snack from the fishing pier near the Warming Hut.

Chillin' Grebes

Whirling Flock

Casting Shadows

Helmet Rock

Obligatory Snapshot: Just Another Gorgeous Day in Paradise

I was riding west on Lake Street next to Lincoln Park when this red-shouldered hawk swooped down and flared its wings to land in some grass maybe 30 feet away from me. I got off my bike to grab my camera, but the hawk had nothing in its talons but a bunch of grass and immediately flew to the top of this pole, swooping very close to a little bitty poodle-type dog on its way. I think the dog just happened to be in the hawk's path, but I wondered if the hawk briefly thought about going for it. I don't think the dog's owner, who was sitting in his parked car, saw any part of it.

I was going to photograph the hummer as it was perched on a branch, putting the bridge in the background, but the bird took off before I could fully get into position.

A juvenile black-crowned night heron was hanging out on the tree that fell into South Lake when it suddenly flew out of sight and evidently chased this adult into flight. They both swooped around the far side of the little island with the redwood trees, then landed in this redwood right in front of me.

The juvenile heron was even smaller than some other juvenile herons hanging out over at North Lake. It hopped/flapped from branch to branch, apparently trying to get closer to the adult, but maybe just trying to get more concealed.

Unfortunately I was zoomed in too tightly when he made this last leap, which got him closer to the adult, but also more concealed from view.

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Mystical Mt. Tamalpais

 

About fifteen years ago I got on a haiku kick and wrote a bunch of little poems to go with some photos I'd shot on Mt. Tam. I made a little 7x7 booklet with a print-on-demand service and only made a few copies. A few of the photo-haikus were printed in Marin Magazine back in 2011, and although I thought I'd kept at least one of the booklets around, I can't find one at the moment. 

On a side note, I was surprised the other day to discover that the Mt. Tamalpais Flickr group has basically gone defunct. I was kind of sad about it because the mountain provided so much inspiration for me for many years. I think the inspiration has just taken a different route for folks nowadays, with people posting tons of stuff to iNaturalist instead.

Anyway, here's the whole set of haiku photos.

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