Common Rarities

 

Robins & Their Prize

Many of the Autumn olive berries had been picked since I passed by last week. The "low-hanging fruit" for robins appeared to be less about being easy to reach from the ground than about being on the outermost branches. The inner branches still teemed with white-speckled, sweet red berries. No one was actively going after the berries when I walked by, but a trio of robins was hanging out in a nearby redwood, perhaps already sated from an earlier morning feast.

Yesterday I dropped off my ebike at Barbary Coast Cyclery for a new chain and brake rotor, then began a slow walk toward home through Golden Gate Park. I figured the bike would be ready by the end of the day, but I got called back in less than two hours, while I was still poking around in the park. Today I poked around some more, and both days I couldn't help wondering where all the birds were.

In general, bird numbers have crashed quite a bit in the last 50 years, but walking around in quiet woodlands with little or no bird-life leaves me sad and wondering. Shouldn't there be more birds around? Golden Gate Park looks like a land of plenty -- plenty of nuts, fruits, seeds, nectar, insects. However, what looks plentiful to me might look almost like a food desert to a songbird such as a chickadee who needs to eat about 35 percent of its body weight in fruit, seeds, and bugs every day.

Walking across Whiskey Hill this morning I encountered a couple of juncos, and that was about it. Meanwhile I could look through the trees at the whole Inner Sunset and see a landscape covered wall-to-wall with human habitations. I couldn't help yearning a little bit for a better balance on the non-human side of the scale.

Chestnut-backed Chickadee

The chickadee was probing for insects under the bark.

Western Bluebird at Elk Glen Lake

A Townsend's warbler dropped in at a small creek in the SF Botanical Garden.

It bathed briefly, then flew up into a tree branch to preen for a quarter of a minute before flying off to continue feeding.

At Lily Lake today, this Cassin's vireo was sharing a willow with a Townsend's warbler.

The vireo caught a small caterpillar and managed to hide both its eye and the insects behind skinny branches....

Meanwhile, the Townsend's warbler was yanking on what appeared to be a curled leaf, probably trying to get at an insect within.

Cassin's Vireo

Townsend's Warbler

Two Very Short Takes

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The Real Wilson's Warbler

 

Wilson's Warbler, Golden Gate Park

After my recent quandary over a false Wilson's warbler that turned out to be a yellow warbler with a dark patch of dried eucalyptus sap on its head, it was good to see the real Mr. Wilson foraging today near Elk Glen Lake. It caught my eye just after I'd been drawn in by my first brown creeper of the season.

Down by the Cliff House I stopped to check out a red-tailed hawk that was perched on a light pole near the totem pole, but by the time I got my kickstand down the hawk had flown away. I looked for it across the street in case it had pounced on something, and there it was (although the pounce was a miss). It flew back across the street and passed just a few feet in front of me to land on a nearby rock. I noticed its leg band and wondered if it was Marlon Bando, now in adult plumage.

A few drops of rain spattered the road while I was out walking and biking, and eventually enough drops fell that I decided to call it my first fall rain. Hopefully there will be plenty more to come. This was not the kind of rain that gets the porcini popping.

I stopped by Metson Lake (soon to be blocked off for the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass concert) to watch a young great blue heron hunting along the lake's edge. A larger adult soon flew in and chased off the youngster, but the youngster didn't go far. In a little while I spotted him sneaking around to enter the lake at a different spot, but once again the adult spotted him and chased him out for good.

Hawk Feather, Sunset Parkway

I was surprised when I first noticed water striders in Metson Lake back in April, and today I saw several in Mallard Lake. Sometimes they're around, and sometimes they aren't. In cold climates they hibernate. One of the weirdest things I ever captured on my trail cams was a bunch of water striders migrating down Cataract Creek one night on Mt. Tamalpais.

Brown Creeper Near Elk Glen Lake

Brown Creeper in Profile

The Wilson's warbler was hunting on the ground, and I wondered if it was feeding on seeds until I saw it catch this crane fly.

Wilson came out of the undergrowth just long enough to let me snap a couple of frames.

Bando (?) in adult plumage after a failed pounce from across the Great Highway.

Here he's perched near the Cliff House, with Seal Rocks in the background.

A second hawk was perched on a light pole farther up the road. I figure these are the same two resident red-tails I often saw before my Midwest Interlude.

Actual rain clouds, not just fog.

This is the adult heron that chased off the younger one.

Here, the younger one sneaks around the lake on foot.

It enters the lake but it soon gets frightened and flies up onto the root mass of the tree that fell in the lake during a storm in February 2023.

Note the reddish feathers on the full adult. It didn't want the youngster hanging around at all and chased it off the root mass. I didn't see either bird make a strike  on any fish during this whole episode.

A Little Bliss: First Fall Rain

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Incident at Seal Rocks

 

Juvenile Brown Pelican Having a Rough Morning

I arrived at the Cliff House just in time to catch a bit of a feeding frenzy just offshore. In the water were countless cormorants and gulls, as well as numerous brown pelicans and elegant terns. The pelicans were not dive-bombing as they do when there's a real feeding frenzy, but the terns were, and the cormorants were diving from the surface to go after the fish.

While I was watching, I noticed a young brown pelican who'd drifted into the surf zone and could hardly believe my eyes when he got caught by a wave and was tumbled all the way into the beach. It reminded me of something that happened to me at Waikiki Beach when I was around five years old. I still remember the helpless feeling of being caught, and of seeing nothing but water, sun, sand, and foam as I was tumbled to shore, holding my breath to the breaking point. 

The pelican finally got its footing on the beach, but appeared to have injured its wing in the tumult. Once again, the shorebreak caught him and the current dragged him south. By the time I got over there he'd managed to climb up onto a rock to catch his breath. This is the rock that I've often seen black oystercatchers and other birds feeding and bathing on, as there is a small pool on top of the rock. The pelican didn't dally for long, as high surf threatened to inundate its position. Instead, the pelican leaped back into the ocean and started paddling for all he was worth toward Seal Rocks.

The pelican eventually found a place where he could get a foothold and climbed up, padding over the mussel beds into an alcove that turned out to be a dead end. Back he went into the ocean to try to paddle to a better landing area, calmly letting the current do much of the work. Soon enough, he found another good spot and climbed up to join a gaggle of cormorants, and for now at least, find respite and safety. 

Animals are the original stoics. The pelican didn't seem flustered at all despite surviving its potentially fatal ordeal. It followed its instincts and whatever knowledge pelicans glean in their lives to calmly assess its situation and work toward a solution. No panic, no self-pity. Just a day in the life, and an exciting story to tell his pals at the pelican bar.

Most of the birds were out in the ocean, but a young Heermann's gull managed to snag a mole crab from beneath the sand.

There was lots of activity on the water around Seal Rocks, but it was short-lived. Maybe fifteen minutes after I got there it was all over, and the birds got out of the water to dry off on the rocks.

Putting it in Motion

These video clips of the pelican's ordeal were too long to post directly on Blogger, so I had to upload it to YouTube.

Seal Rock Rest Stop

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Exotic Natives

 

Anna's Hummingbird Keeps Its Eyes Peeled

The division over exotic vs. native species can refer to plants like eucalyptus, insect pests like murder hornets, or even mollusks like the zebra mussel. In those cases, exotic is the opposite of native. But exotic can also mean romantic, strange, colorful, or marvellous, all of which apply to so many of our California native species.

I love it when a bird comes in close enough that even my compact camera is able to capture the intricate details in its feather structure. I got a few such opportunities today in the intimate confines of the Fort Mason Community Garden, though you'd need to click on the image to see it full-sized (1200 x 900 pixels) to see what I mean.

I first biked out to Heron's Head Park but didn't find much bird life, maybe because the tide was in and there was no exposed mud. One lonely great blue heron rested in the sanctuary, a handful of elegant terns sewed through the air over the bay, and a couple dozen brown pelicans glided in high V-formations along the coast. I'd later see a couple of white pelicans hanging out with brown pelicans at Crissy Lagoon and be surprised by how much larger white pelicans are.

I recently finished re-reading my copy of The Wild Trees by Richard Preston, about locating, climbing, and doing research in the canopy of coast redwood trees, mostly up in the Jed Smith and Prairie Creek state parks. The book came out in 2007, and even then its map showed quite a lot of redwood forest that had not been explored for superlative trees like the 380.8-foot-tall Hyperion (as measured in 2019). I wonder how much of those "blank spots" are still blank.

The main human character in the book is a guy named Steve Sillett, who's one of my heroes. A guy who really loved to climb redwoods who turned his passion into a career that continues to this day. I was interested to note that in this book about climbing redwoods, there was no mention of another hero of mine, Julia Butterfly Hill, who lived in a redwood named Luna for 738 days, from 1997 to 1999, to raise awareness of old-growth logging practices. 

Anyway, although the coast redwoods are some of our most exotic natives, I also appreciate even the likes of goldfinches and flycatchers, finches and sparrows.

A naturalized exotic in San Francisco, red-masked parakeets have been busy plucking acorns in my neighbor's oak tree recently. The oak also attracts squirrels, and the squirrels often pass through our garden on the way to the oak, digging holes and uprooting small plants as they go. In the hope of discouraging them from destroying some things I just planted yesterday I've peppered the soil around the plants with cayenne. Hope it works.

Northern Mockingbird

They're very quiet when it's past breeding season. This mockingbird was caught in a lemon tree just before diving toward the ground and out of sight.

A California towhee hangs out on one of the garden's benches.

This diminutive western wood-pewee came so close I could almost reach out and scratch its cute little head.

It was soon chased off by a larger flycatcher, a black phoebe.

This lesser goldfinch slowly fluttered toward me, perch by perch, until it reached a seedy destination worthy of the risk.

Nearby, a few others stuck with the tried-and-true evening primrose seeds.

Lesser Goldfinch

The Anna's hummingbird was so focused on preening that it didn't seem to mind how close I was.

Feeding Goldfinch and Preening Hummingbird

A pair of house finches keeps a look-out.

I snapped this shot of an anise swallowtail butterfly and was moving toward a different vantage point when it abruptly flew away just moments before a scrub jay darted into the picture. Apparently, jays, spotted towhees, and other birds do prey on these butterflies.

After missing its chance with the swallowtail, the jay had to settle for mere crumbs.

White pelicans are quite a bit larger than brown pelicans.

I couldn't resist snapping a shot of this brown pelican gliding over Crissy Lagoon.

Perched in a shallow spot just upwind of the pelicans and cormorants was this mystery guy....

Aha, mystery solved.

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Crazy About Yew

 

Fox Squirrel Savoring a Yew Cone

I never paid this tree any mind until I saw a squirrel zipping all over it this morning. I was intrigued by the little red fruits it was eating, so I took some pictures that would help me identify it when I got home. But even while I was still out walking I realized I could just search for "conifer with red berries," which led me to the European Yew (Taxus baccata). 

This is a different species than our Pacific Yew, from which the cancer-fighting medicine Taxol is extracted. Both yews produce good wood for archery bows (such as Robin Hood's legendary longbow), although the ones near McLaren Lodge in Golden Gate Park are probably too twisty to produce a good bow stave.

The squirrel was so fond of the fruits (which are modified seed cones; the fleshy red scale is call an aril) that I decided to try one myself. It was surprisingly sweet. I had just eaten a different red berry from the fruiting Autumn Olive bush that I pass on the way to the yew trees, which are near an entrance to the Oak Woodlands. 

After enjoying the flavor I spit out the pulp and seed since I didn't know what it was. Turns out the yew's generic epithet, Taxus, has the same linguistic root as "toxic." The whole plant -- except for the red aril -- contains a poisonous alkaloid called taxine, which is toxic even to squirrels. Presumably they just eat the fleshy aril and leave the seed uneaten, thereby avoiding a potentially fatal heart attack.

It's a clever trick of nature to create the delicious outer aril around a poisonous seed. Some birds can safely consume the fruit for its tasty aril while letting the seed pass through their digestive systems intact, thereby aiding in seed dispersal. The trick for birds and mammals is to leave the seed coat intact to avoid being poisoned.

A sprig of European yew with the berry-like cone attached.

Saw my first Townsend's warbler of the season, but this was the only photo I could get. Nothing like the nice views I got almost exactly one year ago.

This was one of several Anna's hummingbirds stationed around the perimeter of the Fuchsia Dell, which has many plants in bloom right now.

According to the Merlin app, this is a female Western tanager. With so little yellow coloration in her feathers, I'd never have guessed.

A honeybee emerges from a flower at Lily Lake.

Water Lilies in Bloom

I liked the reflections on the water with this one.

Probably a Four Spot Orb Weaver (Araneus quadratus) in an appropriate Halloween color. I like that it makes the sign (which is about not feeding wild animals) seem quite sinister. I'd hope the spider was going to work on its snare, but it found a warm spot on the sign and curled up to take a nap.

This cabbage white butterfly flew in while I was watching the orb weaver.

A few skippers were acting frisky, fluttering around each other and even prodding each other with their legs. 

Frisky Skippers

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