Walkin' on the Wild Side

 

Coyote Near Hellman Hollow

I spotted the coyote walking up Middle Drive just as it turned into the brush toward Hellman Hollow. I stopped and got off my bike, dropped the kickstand, opened the trunk bag, and pulled out my camera to see if the coyote would show itself again. It soon did, and although I wasn't terribly close, it spotted me right off (darn that high-visibility bike jacket!). The coyote stared at me for a breath or two, then calmly turned back and crossed Middle Drive, heading south. I tried to find it again to no avail.

This morning's rain was perfectly timed. With a window slightly open, I enjoyed listening to it while I had breakfast and coffee and read the news online, and it stopped right about the time I was ready to head out for a walk.

I reminded myself to put the news of the day out of mind as I walked, and pay attention to my surroundings instead -- not just for safety's sake, but to spot anything interesting or beautiful. I also thought about a book I'm reading called Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death, by Nick Lane. I'm only a quarter of the way into it, but here's a couple of things I highlighted:

"We have taken [cells] apart, in centrifuges or with optical tweezers, read out the code that specifies their structures, deciphered the regulatory loops that lend an illusion of purpose, listed all their parts. And yet underneath it all, we are barely any closer to understanding what breathes life into these flicks of matter."

And, "What were the steps by which thin air was transformed into the substance of life, starlight into matter?"

It's really beautiful the way the author discusses the intricacies of the Krebs cycle or photosynthesis, then derives succinct and poetic musings such as the two above. I also like the historical stories about the ingenuity and doggedness of the people who incrementally win the knowledge that we later take for granted.

This Nuttall's woodpecker really liked to work upside-down.

As I was watching the Nuttall's, this hairy woodpecker flew onto the same tree.

Mallard Lake
(I saw more red-eared sliders than mallards.)

Also at Mallard Lake, a couple of 4-spot orb-weavers (Araneus quadratus) were busy repairing their rain-damaged snares.

Working her spinneret to produce spider silk.

The red-shouldered hawk, also at Mallard Lake, screeched its call numerous times, but took exception to being watched and soon flew away.

You can't rely on the camera meter to get the correct exposure in such challenging back-lit situations, but thankfully it's easy to dial in a stop or two of overexposure with the FZ80D.

It has its limits, though, and the camera doesn't always find a place to focus the lens, or it finds a place that is in front of or behind the actual subject. Nevertheless, I was surprised to get a good enough shot to ID the bird (in the Merlin app) as an orange-crowned warbler.

I hesitate to guess which dragonfly this is. I recently photographed one with more blue in it at the SF Botanical Garden. It's a big dragonfly, and I wanted to say blue-eyed darner, but it doesn't really seem to have blue eyes!

I imagine all the preparations for Hardly Strictly Bluegrass this weekend are causing coyotes (along with the rest of us) to alter their routes and routines. 

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Warbling Vireo

 

Today's Sunrise Cloudscape

The sky was so dark, gray and monotonous when I woke up that I decided to just lie in bed a while. What's the rush? I'm retired! Eventually the morning slowly began to brighten up, then suddenly transformed into this beautiful cloudscape. 

I photographed a warbling vireo yesterday, my first. The Merlin app has picked up their vocalizations a couple of times on Mt. Tam, but I never got a good look at one. This particular bird stopped on my neighbor's lilly pilly tree as it was passing through, and I happened to have my camera ready. I got one frame off before it flew away.

Warbling Vireo, Golden Gate Heights

Gruff-looking Scrub Jay in my neighbor's oak tree.

I've had deer antlers in my garden for many years without any critters ever taking an interest in them. It's just been in the last year or so that the neighborhood squirrels have been munching on them. I don't begrudge them for doing it (I leave in place the great majority of shed antlers I find in the wild), although the teeth marks do ruin the aesthetic value of the antlers. They are packed with minerals, though, so I can't fault squirrels like this female for taking advantage.

Pygmy nuthatches in a bird cage? No! A new bird feeder has shown up in the neighborhood. Only small birds can reach the seeds. Sorry, squirrels! The plate on the bottom keeps the seeds from falling to the ground where they'd attract rats and other animals, and there's a dome on top to keep the rain out. 

It's a good design for a bird feeder, but I preferred to photograph one of the nuthatches perched in a nearby tree.

The same house also has a hummingbird feeder, but this one is not rat-proof. I have trail-cam video of a rat hanging from our backyard hummingbird feeder. I'd been wondering why it emptied out every night.

Yellow Evening Primrose

On my walk this morning I looked up and saw birds splashing on the roof of a house next to a long set of stairs. When I climbed high enough up the stairs I was able to look back and see the white-crowned sparrows from above.

I noticed that the Chinese chestnut tree at North Lake had dropped lots of spiky fruit today, so I thought I'd check out the nuts to see if they are sweet, but the nuts hadn't really developed. They were flat and looked unappetizing, maybe because there isn't a second tree around for cross-pollination.

A pair of turkey vultures was soaring above Sutro Park late this morning. I second-guessed myself for a minute, thinking they might be hawks, because they weren't doing the tippy-wing thing very much.

The vulture seemed portentious when I spotted this poor cormorant writhing on the beach below the Cliff House. I'd never seen a dying bird in such apparent agony before.

I recorded some video of the cormorant, but be advised that it could be disturbing to watch.

I rode from Cliff House out to the southern end of Sunset Dunes Park and was surprised to see a dead buck deer on the beach at Sloat Boulevard. I wondered if it walked up from the south, or washed up after being carried by currents from the north. It's the first time I've ever seen a dead deer on Ocean Beach.

This is a phone snap of today's sunrise, shot shortly after the FZ80D image at the top of the post.

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Yardbirds

 

Red-legged Frogs, SF Botanical Garden

I was about to head down to the botanic garden when I spotted some bird action in my back yard. Something big flew into the neighbor's oak tree, and a mess of chickadees started going nuts, chattering at full volume. Three or four hummingbirds also began darting all over the place and chittering non-stop. The big bird finally showed itself as a crow, and a second one soon flew into the tree as well. The crows were being casual though, just hanging out on branches, and the upset little birds soon returned to their normal activities.

I recently bought some other tubular red-flowered plants, but the hummingbirds seem to be ignoring them in favor of this old-timer.

I got nice views of the chestnut-backed chickadees when they emerged onto outer branches of my neighbor's lilly-pilly tree.

When I listen to a chickadee I get the "chick-a-dee-dee" sound, but I would never have thought to spell it that way.

This female Anna's humminbird was resting on the tip of a branch almost even with my position at the top of a flight of stairs.

Skinny look vs. pudgy look.

It's still froggy back in the Children's Garden, but it's a little tricky to get back there while construction is going on near its main entrance above the Succulent Garden.

Frogs in the Fog

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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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