Green Heron

 

Green Heron at the Lily Pond, Golden Gate Park

Thanks to another photographer who was pointing her FZ80D at something in the Lily Pond, I finally got to see the green heron. I had just struck out trying to find the leucistic junco that was reported a few days ago around the Bunny Meadow, so the green heron was a most welcome sighting. 

A couple of ruby-crowned kinglets took turns hawking for insects over the pond, occasionally landing in a densely branched little tree near me. One of them was showing his ruby crown, and both had blackened feathers around their beaks. Yellow-rumped warblers also used the little tree as a hawking perch.

Magnolias in Forest Hill

The snowy egret was absent from Metson Lake when I rode by there today, replaced by this great blue heron.

The juncos were singing around the sunny Bunny Meadow.

Short Clip of Singing Junco

Ruby-crowned Kinglet at the Lily Pond

Check out this ruby-crowned kinglet's beak-adjacent feathers. I tried to google what's up with that, but all the answers were about captive birds and didn't seem to apply.

A yellow-rumper on the look-out for flying insects.

The green heron snags and eats its prey very quickly, but I got this one shot while its captive was still in its beak.

This is a tighter crop of the previous shot, showing the heron's gelatinous, fish-like prey.

Yellow-rumped warbler on a budding branch.

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Between the Storms

 

Hummer in Light Rain

I wasn't sure how today was going pan out, weatherwise, but when the rain eased up around 10 a.m. I decided to go for my Monday walk (the one I didn't take yesterday). I had to take cover from a few brief squalls during the walk, but it was easy enough to find cover under awnings and such. However, I put the kibosh on doing a bike ride when I got home just as the rain and wind started cranking up in a big way.

The straight and narrow way: Ortega Street steps to the beach. The California towhee and hummingbird photos were taken here on the steps.

California Towhee

A woman was walking off the beach when I arrived. Those are her footprints in the sand, receding back toward the Adirondack chair.

Wind-scoured Ocean Beach at Low Tide

Video clips from the beach, with drifting sand.

I hadn't seen a Heermann's gull in a while, so I grabbed this shot as a pair flew by, heading south into the wind.

Small groups of sanderlings were foraging on the beach along with a few gulls. I was going to head north to look for snowy plovers when a rain squall came and sent me scampering for cover. I jogged back across the beach, crossed the Upper Great Highway, and was surprised to see a port-a-potty on the bike path. Good timing in more ways than one, although I did leave to find more commodius shelter as soon as I finished my business.

Pigeons Bracing Against the Wind on Noriega Street

Pigeons in Rows

Nice Day!

And now for something completely different. I made this bobcat photo back in February 2011, catching it in a stretch when it got up after lying in the grass for a long time.

At one point while I was waiting for it to move, I changed the camera settings on my Nikon D300S to photograph the much more brightly lit Tennessee Cove. When I suddenly saw the bobcat get up, I fired off this one frame, only to realize I was way underexposed. In fact, the RAW frame looks black in thumbnail form.

But I kept it anyway, and today I processed it in Lightroom, adding about 3.5 stops of exposure and some color corrections, then running Denoise on it.

* * *

After the Rain

 

A song sparrow sings on a rain-free morning.

After spending a rainy weekend indoors, I felt the need for a bit more nature than I could hope to experience on my usual Monday walk, so I moved up the calendar and took my Tuesday walk instead. Had I waited for Tuesday, I'd likely be facing another rainy day. I am a creature of habit and actually had to talk myself into making the switch, and I'm glad I won the argument. 

As I was doing the monthly bills on Saturday I noticed that my Photoshop & Lightroom subscription had increased by fifty percent, from ten bucks to fifteen bucks a month. I don't recall ever getting a notice from Adobe about the increase -- or of the option to switch to an annual subscription to save sixty bucks over the cost of the monthly sub. I spent half an hour with a robot and a salesperson on Adobe chat to sort it out, but I could simply have logged into Adobe > Manage Account to cancel my monthly sub and immediately purchase an annual sub. The salesperson also reimbursed the January fee I already paid, so the half hour chat went down a little easier.

I also recently had some metal prints made by Bay Photo Lab, paying extra for 2-day shipping to get the prints before the following Friday. They advertise a one-day production turnaround, but my Saturday submission wasn't worked on until Wednesday evening, and my prints arrived the following Saturday. At least the prints looked great. I also recently used Mpix for a metal print that also looked great, but it was a bit more expensive.

The Sunset Parkway was almost devoid of birdlife (including no activity at the potential red-tailed hawk nest), so I opened the door to other subjects to satisfy my urge to shutterbug.

Calla Lily Leaf

Unfurling Calla Lily

B&W Conversion

I couldn't resist these first-of-season forget-me-nots....

Cryptic Critter
(Orange-crowned Warbler)

A pair of hooded mergansers was kind enough to paddle past me at very close range at Mallard Lake.

Dynamic Duo

Song Sparrow on Budding Branch

Townie Stretching Out

Cute Perch

Townie At The Baths

Yellow-Rumper, Mallard Lake

A lot of birds were taking advantage of bathing opportunities in a little creek next to Mallard Lake.

Yellow-rumped Warbler, Golden Gate Park

The lighter colors indicate this is a female or juvenile Townie.

Gorget Flasher

I've been hearing pygmy nuthatches way up high in the pines for weeks, and this is the first one I've caught down low in ages.

Townie On A Twig

As I finally tore myself away from Mallard Lake, this dark-eyed junco stood sentinel on a pathside log.

I figure these are latticed stinkhorn mushrooms that were bleached of their usual orange color by a weekend of nearly constant light rain.

There were lots of red-shouldered hawks squawking in the vicinity of Elk Glen Lake this morning. I don't know what the relationship was between these two, but the one on the right took off soon after they joined up.

See Ya

The red-winged blackbirds were twittering a bit more than usual, and were also a bit more visible than usual in the tules around Elk Glen Lake.

"Keer, Keer, Keer!"

Wild Cucumber, Grandview Park

The Singapore-flagged container ship Maersk Algol off Ocean Beach, heading to the Port of Oakland.

View North From Cliff House

The crew of willets was back on the beach near Cliff House.

Willet Scratcher

Beach Rocks #1

Ocean Beach, San Francisco

Beach Rocks #2

Some ravens dropped in on the strong winds as I was photographing the willets down below.

One of them landed very close to me, no doubt hoping I had a treat for him.

I wonder if he was croaking a warning to the others to stay away from his human.

Quite a few of the songbirds had discolored feathers on their face, which I figure is dirt that has stuck to their feathers with the help of sap or other sticky plant substances.

The lone snowy egret was back at Metson Lake. Which reminds me that, for the first time in a long time, I didn't see any black-crowned night herons at either North Lake or South Lake.

Turtle Pals on the Fallen Cypress, Metson Lake

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