Point Reyes in November Past

 

Sunrise at Point Reyes

I've been too lazy to go out and get any new shots, so this is Point Reyes in November of years past.

Bluffs at Chimney Rock

Pacific Edge at Dawn

Lagunitas Creek

Surf Fishing at North Beach

Marbled Godwit at Drake's Beach

Roadside Cleaning Crew

Dewy Morning in Bear Valley

Handsome Coyote #1

Handsome Coyote #2

Remembering Fallow Deer

Remembering the Wittenberg Trail

Galerina in the Moss

Pelicans in the Dunes

Mt. Vision View

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Moonrise

 

Waning Crescent Moon Above San Francisco

When I got into bed last night I figured if I happened to wake up in time, I'd go out onto the Golden Gate Bridge to photograph the crescent moon rising above the city. Then I thought better of that half-hearted plan and set my alarm for 4 a.m., only to wake up at about 3:30 anyway. Plenty of time to make some oatmeal and drink a cup of coffee before heading out for the 5:33 moonrise.

I'm so used to biking to the bridge, I almost forgot the most direct route to drive there. Other than a couple of cop cars, mine was the only car in the lot when I arrived, and even the cop cars had left by the time I got back. I walked out around 15 minutes after the gate opened at 5 a.m. to allow pedestrians and cyclists onto the bridge. There are crisis counseling signs everywhere, and I got checked out--by a guy on the bridge and from a boat on the water--to make sure I wasn't planning to jump. 

As soon as I set up my camera I realized I was going to be contending with wind-shake, bridge vibrations from passing traffic, and a bit of atmospheric disturbance, all of which would compromise the sharpness of any photos. The shot above was the best of the bunch, and a couple of them were downright blurry. As I was waiting for the moon to rise, I took in the Big Dipper and Orion, and when I turned my back to the wind I saw a cruise ship about to enter the bay, so I photographed it with a slightly long exposure since sharpness was not an option anyway.

A while ago I posted a shot of a nearby neighborhood intersection from 1928 to compare it with today. The owner of the house with the big pines in the "today" shot recently had all his trees removed. I documented the loss with my smartphone during the ten days or so it took to do the job.

Ship Passing In the Night

Neighborhood Tree Removal

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Ladybugs

 

Acorn Woodpecker

As I biked across the Golden Gate Bridge there were very few tourists afoot, as I would expect for this time of year, but I was surprised to encounter so few cyclists riding the other way. It was a beautiful Thursday morning and not particularly cold, but I practically had the whole span to myself. On the north side I was pleasantly surprised to see unusually large flocks of pelicans and cormorants resting on the  calm water's surface in front of Fort Baker. They were  all gone by the time I rode back that way in the afternoon.

The ride up the mountain was uneventful until I noticed that those crazy western azaleas had a few blossoms on them again. Their leaves were all autumn shades of red and yellow, yet a couple of them had fresh white flowers at the tips of their highest branches.

Farther up the road, between Bootjack and Pantoll, I passed a squirrel that had recently been hit by a car in the downhill lane. Since I had a safe place to pull over and there was very little traffic, I went to move it off the road so scavengers could feed on the carcass without themselves being endangered. When I reached the squirrel I was struck by the bright red stream of fresh blood that had flowed from its wound. Even more poignant were the broken pieces of a peppernut on either side of its head. 

The sun angle was noticeably lower when I reached the Pantoll Road vista point I often stop at, and the first blades of green grass were infiltrating the brown hillsides of Bolinas Ridge. I locked my bike at Rock Spring and hiked out to my trail cams, and was disappointed to find the creekbeds still quiet. There were more or less continuous pools of water in some stretches, but the water wasn't flowing. 

Near the Rock Spring tank, the dead Douglas firs that had been marked with yellow ribbons (see photo near the bottom of this post) had recently been cut down. The sound of chainsaws buzzed in the distance. I heard water running in the little well-like spring next to the trail and went to investigate. Sure enough, water was pouring gently from a pipe onto a bed of watercress. Suddenly I felt something like a tick crawling on my leg, and when I looked down to flick it off I saw what I thought was a ladybug. I had to put on my reading glasses to be sure, and when I did I saw that the ground was crawling with many other ladybugs. Had they been nestled in holes or beneath the bark of one of the felled trees? Some of them congregated on nearby plants and fallen branches, but for the most part they seemed to be milling about very loosely. I wish I could have been there early this morning to see if they had formed a larger aggregation like this in order to stay warm.

An acorn woodpecker takes stock of its pantry.

Cut trees near Rock Spring.

A quick count of the rings showed this section to be about my age -- over 60 anyway.

A small aggregation of ladybugs.

Buck deer at stream crossing.

Two of three raccoons that foraged along the creek after some rain put more water in it.

A gray fox stops to smell something of interest.

This is a combination of two frames from the GardePro cam, showing how fast the coyote moved through the frame. The cam is set to snap two stills and a video, but the coyote was well out of the frame by the time the video started.

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