Varied Thrush

 

Varied Thrush, San Francisco Botanical Garden

The first one I saw was on the ground and was so unexpected that I just caught myself before possibly scaring it away with any rapid movements. I'd heard a couple of buzzing calls from Varied Thrush earlier in the morning near the Fragrance Garden but had left that area without a sighting. 

The one on the ground did eventually fly away into the nearby Redwood Grove, but as I continued my walk I got another nice surprise. Varied thrush and robins were going after some berries nearby, including some purple barberries that were in fairly good light. Mostly, though, the birds were going after some other orange berries in deeper, denser foliage, well out of camera range, and I waited quite a while before either returned to the purple berries.

The rest of the morning was filled with the usual suspects, and a lively lot they were. The other day at Heron's Head I was enjoying all the bird life so much I didn't want to go home until hunger intervened. Today was much the same, with lots of birds to try to photograph. A mid-day lunch break seems to work out well anyway since the birds get more scarce around that time too.

The many Yellow-rumped Warblers were a scream.

I wondered if this Orange-crowned Warbler was eating the insect larvae within some leaf galls.

In addition to the orange-crowned warblers and ruby-crowned kinglets, several Townsend's Warblers soon joined the ruckus. This one appears to be nabbing an ant.

A couple of squirrels were yanking out dried vegetation to build a new addition to their existing nest in a nearby tree.

Some cotoneaster bushes with berries just as ripe as any others are unaccountably left alone while others are pounced on. 

Bushtit!
(It's been a while since I was able to photograph one.)

This little Nuttall's Woodpecker looked so clean and fresh, like it just got out of the shower.

While, on the other hand....

Actually, being covered with rhododendron pollen isn't the same as being dirty.

Speedy Little Fella

Showing just a tiny bit of its namesake ruby crown.

Some yellow-rumped warblers were spending a lot of time on these Chilean rhubarb fruit spikes, but I couldn't catch one with a little orange berry in its beak.

Whenever one bird was chasing another one this morning, the culprits were these guys -- Hermit Thrushes.

Life on the Edge

Anna's Hummingbird

I hear Red-breasted Nuthatches quite often, but I haven't actually gotten to see one up close in quite a while.

While the nuthatches and Townsend's warblers worked the foliage, a Brown Creeper did its foraging on the trunk.

Varied thrush, feeding on the ground.

Varied thrush with barberry.

An Anna's hummingbird sipped nectar from the flowers on the same tree.

Barberry host: When the coast is clear, a robin swoops down to shanghai a berry or two.

Northern Flicker

Black Phoebe

I didn't notice the berries behind the Swainson's Thrush until I saw the picture. Had I seen them I'd probably have waited to see if it would snag one for the camera.

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Heron's Head High

 

Greater Yellowlegs, Heron's Head Park

I was looking forward to checking out the high tide at Heron's Head today, and I wasn't disappointed. The predicted high (probably lower than the actual high) was 7 feet at about 12:30 p.m., and the trail was only inches above the water in some places. The king tides that will come around the solstice will probably submerge those lower stretches (and I might have to head back to see that too).

Other than the freakishly high tide, the high point for me was photographing a couple of Wilson's snipes, a species I haven't seen in a long time.

An unusual woodpecker had been photographed near the Horseshoe Courts yesterday, so I stopped by there on my way to Heron's Head. I managed to photograph this Nuttall's woodpecker in the Oak Woodlands, but I only saw the unusual one after I put away my camera. By the time I got the camera back out, a couple of squirrels had chased off the out-of-town woodpecker, and I was unable to find it again.

This was right around the peak high tide. That spit of land in the background is Heron's Head.

This was the view from the Heron's Head trail.

The Snowy Egret was bossing the Black-legged Stilt around, never letting it get down to business, so the stilt found another spot to forage in peace.

Did it catch a fish? Nope. It's an earwig!

Stalking Stilt

I could hear the American Wigeons' wheezy calls before I finally spotted a few.

The Greater Yellowlegs landed too near the human for comfort and soon took off to put more distance between us.

Which I didn't mind since I got a chance to photograph it in flight.

I figured the Gumweed wasn't being drowned, but it sure was proving its mettle as a specialized halophyte.

Hey, whatta ya know, another Meadowlark! Definitely different habitat than Crissy Field, which might explain why I saw only one foraging in the marsh.

Legs built for high tides.

Gumweed & Yellowlegs

I've seen a couple of Say's Phoebes recently, but this was the first time I had a camera with me.

The phoebe caught something like a mayfly.

A couple of Elegant Terns were swooping around, but they were not present in large numbers.

The Black-bellied Plover rested on one leg while various other birds roamed around nearby.

A couple of Wilson's Snipes were hiding next to a nearby tuft of plants, but one of them finally came out into the open.

Then it (or the other one) took a stroll past some fall foliage.

And ended up hiding in another spot. However, it soon realized it wasn't very well-concealed after all and strode back to the other side of the plant patch where I could no longer see it.

Least Sandpipers

P.S. I forgot to include a few shots I took with the compact camera during my morning walk.

The setting moon looked so big when I set out in the morning, when it had houses or trees in the foreground. Soon, however, my walk brought me to a view of it over the wide ocean, and the moon seemed to have shrunk.

A Golden-crowned Sparrow at Mallard Lake liked this look-out post, returning to it after initially being frightened off it.

The Red-shouldered Hawks were squawking like crazy Tuesday morning. It's unusual for me to see two of them together on a branch like this. Normally it would be associated with mating or with feeding juveniles, but this didn't seem like either.

The Red-naped Sapsucker briefly dropped by the valley oak at Elk Glen Lake.

Great Blue Heron, Elk Glen Lake

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