Rainy Days

 

Storm Squall Floating Over San Francisco

The wind chill was almost certainly dipping into the 30s yesterday (~45 degrees w/ 25 mph wind) as I waited for the squall above to blow into rainbow position. It felt downright wintry in the stiff wind that was blowing most people off the top of Grandview Park after just a few minutes of taking in the view. 

I had seen the squall on internet radar and drove over to the park in the hope of catching a big bow over the city, but it was not to be. A little bitty fragment showed up briefly, but even that scrap of color was gone before it drifted into a more interesting position over the city.

I had hoped to try again today, but Coco, the semi-feral neighborhood cat that we've been feeding (and sheltering on cold or rainy nights), seems to have come down with something, and I'm still waiting to go pick her up from the vet. I wasn't prepared for the sticker shock of going to the vet since I haven't been to see one in probably thirty years. Wow. Hopefully they'll get her back to her frisky self soon.

Color Streak

The Pegasus Voyager oil tanker sails into headwinds in the Golden Gate, with storm clouds blowing in over the Marin Headlands and Mt. Tamalpais.

Phone Snap from Grandview Park

Coco the Cat, after sleeping in the rain under a neighbor's oak tree a couple of days ago.

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Bird Flu for Bandies

 

Band-Tailed Pigeon

I just read that band-tailed pigeons are having an outbreak of Avian trichomonosis (which is caused by a protozoan rather than a virus like bird flu, but I took alliterative license in the title of this post). So far this season an estimated 200-300 of these sleek and colorful California native pigeons (Patagioenas fasciata monolis) have succumbed to the virus, which thankfully is a far cry from the estimated 18,000+ that died during the record-breaking warm years of 2014 and 2015. Meanwhile, an estimated 5,600 birds were taken by hunters in the Pacific Coast region in a recent season, which lasts only eighteen days (it's split into two nine-day seasons by region).

Infection with avian trichomonosis isn't always fatal to the bandies, but it can cause lesions in the upper digestive tract that block the passage of food and even air, and eventually cause death. The birds encounter the parasite from contaminated water or food, and adults can infect their chicks when feeding them. The parasite, Trichomonas gallinae, can infect domestic fowl and other wild bird species as well, including raptors that eat infected birds.

Bird feeders and baths are believed to be sites of transmission of the parasite and should be cleaned regularly to help prevent infection.

Bandies Feeding on Soil (or something in the soil) at Agate Beach in Bolinas

Band-Tailed Pigeon Showing Its Tail Feathers

Bandies at a Watering Hole

Four Other Water Hole Visitors (Montage)

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Grandview Park

 

Rainbow Over the Richmond District

I was browsing the internet this morning with my oatmeal and coffee when the sun started breaking out. I wondered if I might have time for a walk down to the beach, so I checked the weather radar and then the Ocean Beach web cam. 

The radar showed that rain was almost certain to get me, but I was surprised to see on the Ocean Beach cam that snow had fallen lower than I'd expected on Mt. Tamalpais. I bolted from the computer, grabbed my camera gear, and drove over to Grandview Park to try to photograph the snowy mountain. 

Unfortunately, even in the short time it took me to climb the steps to the vista point, a phalanx of clouds moved into to obscure the snowy ridge. For just a couple of seconds near the bottom of the stairs I had been able to see the whole mountain from the ocean to East Peak adorned with a frosting of snow, but by the time I reached the top and set up the camera, huffing and puffing, the mountain heights were almost completely obscured.

I hung out for quite a while, hopeful that the mountain would reveal itself again, and shot some time lapse footage instead of just standing in the cold. No luck on the clearing. Meanwhile a dense rank of storm clouds was blowing closer and closer, and with the first few drops I packed up and took refuge in my car. 

The storm passed over, by and by, and a rainbow began to form over the Marin Headlands. I grabbed my gear and started hiking back up the stairs when I stopped to photograph a ship heading out to sea, disappointed that I couldn't have caught it closer to the foot of the rainbow. The ship turned out to be a vehicle carrier called Cetus Leader that had just left its San Francisco anchorage bound for Nagoya, Japan.

It was interesting to see the rainbow so low on the horizon. A little later I thought I might see another bow as a squall moved perfectly into position, but by then the sun was so high that no rainbow could be seen (42 degrees above the anti-solar point, where the rainbow would be, was well in front of the rain squall).

View from the fire look-out on Mt. Tam's East Peak this morning

Clouds Preparing to Obscure the Last Bit of Snow

Crop of Previous Image

Rain Heading for the City

City View from Grandview

Japanese Vehicle Carrier Cetus Leader with Rainbow

Rainbow Fragments
(click images to view larger)

Time Lapse of Clouds Over Mt. Tamalpais

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