Get It While You Can

 

Nesting Great Blue Herons, Blue Heron Lake

With rain in the forecast for tomorrow I figured I should take advantage of a sunny Saturday to get out on my bike to Fort Mason. The chores I usually do today can wait until tomorrow. 

I'd hoped to locate the California thrasher that folks have been seeing over there, but had no luck. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful day to be out and about, so no complaints.

I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've seen tidy tips in the city. They were in a field just above El Polin Spring.

Goldfields and a great blue heron were also in the same field.

I liked this vertical composition with the heron between the two small patches of goldfields in the front and a tall yarrow stalk in the back.

The heron went into stalking mode three times, coming up with bupkis the first two times but scoring a gopher on the third jab.

There were also patches of Dougas iris here and there (above El Polin Spring).

While looking for compositions with the iris flowers, I heard shuffling in the shrubbery nearby and expected to find a sparrow or California towhee when I looked for the culprit. I was surprised to see two spotted towhees instead. 

The California thrasher didn't show up at the Fort Mason Community Garden, but there were hummers galore, taking advantage of all the colorful flowers (including tulips, as I was surprised to see).

A mockingbird vied with noisy parakeets for his place in the soundscape.

Here's a clip of the mockingbird strutting his stuff. I especially liked his take on the Northern flicker.

Coast Guard helicopter circling above Alcatraz Island.

The Hong Kong-flagged container ship YM Wish sails beneath the Golden Gate Bridge on its way to Busan, South Korea.

At Crissy Lagoon, where the tide was high and getting higher, a starling gathered material to feather its nest.

The starling in the back was vocalizing quite a bit. I'd have thought it was a youngster begging for food, but it seemed full-grown. Maybe all its chittering was a mating song.

Starlings hanging out at Crissy Lagoon.

Other than a couple of coots, this resting willet was the only water bird in sight.

I dropped by Lily Lake to see if the green heron was around and found this great blue heron hunting there instead.

When I got to Blue Heron Lake, I again spooked up the adult green heron I saw there yesterday. This time it flew across the water to the edge of the island in front of the boathouse.

The little heron soon took off toward the shore around Strawberry Hill and went into deep cover.

One of the big herons, meanwhile, was busily gathering more sticks for the nest.

The trips were surprisingly short.

Just a few minutes after taking off, the heron would return with a stick.

Looks like it's going to be wet and windy tomorrow. I hope the herons are able to get their chores done today.

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City Life

 

Calypte & Echium

I was about to leave the park at Lincoln Way and 5th Avenue this morning when I spotted a hummingbird perched on a thin, twiggy tree stem poised above a patch of blue Pride of Madeira flowers. About 15 or 20 yards from the mayhem of 4,000-pound vehicles traveling 44 feet per second (30 mph), this Anna's hummingbird, weighing in at an impressive two-tenths of an ounce, was going about her business.

Life in the city.

Motor vehicles are around 150,000 times heavier than hummingbirds on average (according to Microsoft Copilot). For a comparison, a 170-pound person would have to be next to a highway of vehicles weighing 25.5 million pounds, or about 64 times the weight of a freight train locomotive. And you'd need a constant stream of them.

The sad fact is, we'd probably get used to it just like the hummers do. 

After you get used to something, you take it for granted and hardly notice it's there anymore. For some people, their whole lives are like that, and it makes them bored and then depressed, wondering what's the point of knocking yourself out. From just a slightly different viewpoint, though, everything can be seen as novel and amazing. Everything is a doorway to having our minds blown, in a "Zen mind, beginner's mind" way.

Female Northern Flicker, Oak Woodlands

The female was digging like mad in the dirt, and I was wondering when she was going to finally pop up with something in her beak, when this male swooped down and scared her away.

I was used to people spooking the flickers when I'd try to photograph them along the path, but I was surprised to be well off the path this morning and enjoying undisturbed views of the birds, when other people started to mosey through. And then (city life again), a guy who'd taken a leak started doing something else, and I knew it was time to get out of there. I know there are gay hookup places here and there, but I hope this morning's scene in the Oak Woodlands was a one-off.

Foxgloves & Forget-Me-Nots

I heard a little bit of tapping near the foxgloves and soon spotted this little female downy woodpecker.

The male was in the same tree, but higher up. They both moved so quickly that I only got these two semi-acceptable shots before they relocated to another nearby tree that was much taller, which put them out of range.

As this noisy red-shouldered hawk swooped into the tree, the other noisy hawk that was already in it, flew away with a beak full of nesting material.

It kindly moved to a new branch with better light.

This is the same hummer as at the top of the post. She only got into this favorable plane of focus in two of the frames as she circled the inflorescence to feed on its nectar.

I decided to check out the Sutro Dunes/Balboa Natural Area again today, and just as I arrived, this red-tailed hawk (not Bando) winged up from the ground with an unidentified small prey item in its talons, which it made quick work of. Here it's scratching an itch.

I thought it was flying away for good, but it landed on another nearby pole.

'Lectro Hawk

The waves were even a bit bigger today, but the wind wasn't as strong. About the same handful of brown pelicans was roosting on Seal Rocks.

The South Lake GBH didn't fly away this time, evidently in a more mellow mood.

I stopped at my usual GBH nest-viewing spot at Blue Heron Lake and was surprised when an almost comical-looking unknown wading bird (an adult green heron?) suddenly fluttered away. Before turning my gaze upward to the GBH nests, I hadn't even thought to look for anything so close to shore. I surveyed my side of the lake to see if the bird had landed close by and instead found this pied-billed grebe apparently on her floating nest of leaves. Another grebe, presumably her mate, was nearby, just out of the frame to the left. I could tell I was making her nervous, so I departed, although I'd love to have seen the little grebe eggs in the nest.

Cloud Timelapse (Today)

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Waiting It Out

 

One of the Murphy Twins, Waiting Out the Wind

Had a dentist appointment this morning so only went out for a short bike ride. The threat of rain almost made me sit this one out, but I do like to experience a little inclement weather once in a while. Lucky for me, I was biking past the Blue Heron Lake boathouse when it started to rain, so I took cover under an awning there, where I was able to view the blue heron nests (which showed little activity). 

I was soon joined beneath the awning by a few other folks, but most people walking around paid the rain no mind. No rain jacket, no umbrella, no problem. I kinda love that. However, even a light rain can soak you fast while riding a bike, so I preferred to wait it out.

There are a few places in San Francisco where you can find paintbrush (Castilleja coccinea), but this was a new spot for me. This is the Balboa Natural Area, where the Say's phoebe used to hang out, although I haven't seen the phoebe here in weeks. (Although Google Maps names this place Balboa Natural Area, there is a park sign calling it Sutro Dunes.)

Pelican numbers were down again from their peak a couple of days ago, but a few are still hanging around. The shape of Seal Rocks makes it easy for birds to perch on the south-facing side, but unfortunately this is also the windward side today.

This is almost certainly one of the two red-tailed hawks who often perch on the nearby Murphy Windmill blades. A dense tree canopy blocks the wind on the perch above, and last June I saw both hawks occupying the perch at the same time.

I stopped at South Lake to check out this great blue heron, but the heron wasn't having any.

It took off right after I snapped the previous photo and flew to the other side of the lake. I followed, and when it saw me it took off again! When did these guys become so camera-shy? Must be something to do with nesting season.

These three amigos were lounging languidly in the shallows of South Lake.

Some short timelapse sequences from the past two days.

A little video of the red-tail.

View from the Cliff House today.

* * *

Heron Gets A Fish

 

Catch of the Day at Blue Heron Lake

Despite yesterday's Google AI query that resulted in park staff denying there are fish in the lakes of Golden Gate Park, today's query ("Are there fish in Blue Heron Lake?") returned a list of the following names of fish in the lake: sunfish, bluegill, pumpkinseed, perch, bass, koi, pike, minnows, shad, carp, catfish, and muskellunge. 

If I had to guess what the great blue heron above caught, I'd say sunfish, but let me know if you know different. Click any photo to view it larger.

I'd been watching the heron for a while and was just about to pack up the camera and ride home when I saw it make a stab at something. I zoomed in to discover that it had caught a pretty good-sized fish. It took just under two-and-a-half minutes to go from catching it to swallowing it (according to timestamps on the photos).

View from the Aeonium Highlands
A highlight of the day's walk was a sound rather than an image. I heard my first-ever hermit thrush singing here in the city. It was in someone's back yard, and traffic noise on Pacheco Street almost drowned it out. Another highlight was finding the band-tailed pigeon nest (first seen on 2/11/25) empty, presumably after a successful fledging of chicks that I never got to see.

Heron on the Hunt

Passing Geese

The Long View

The fish struggled right up to the end.

The serrated beaks of great blue herons help them keep a strong grip on even a flailing fish.

After getting the fish aligned with its bill, the heron is finally ready to drop it down the hatch.

A fish becomes a heron.

Happy Heron

Mt. Shasta This Morning

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