Beach Birds

 

The weather has taken an elegant tern for the better this morning, with a cool, foggy marine layer softening the scorching city. It was dark and cool during my walk, and fog was riding a southwestern breeze. The offshore winds still haven't arrived as of early this morning. We've been taking advantage of the welcome sea breeze by opening windows to chase away living room temperatures in the 80s.

These Drake's Beach scenes are from September 2014, right in the middle of the 2011-2017 drought that killed millions of trees which became tinder for forest fires, and which caused billions of dollars in agricultural losses.

I'm reading Storms of My Grandchildren by James Hansen. I downloaded the e-book without realizing it came out in 2009, a million years ago. It's kind of an interesting memoir of Hansen's efforts to get policy makers to take action to curb global warming before irreversible effects kick into gear. Back in 2009, Hansen had revised his target estimate of when atmospheric carbon dioxide would be too hot to handle from 450 ppm to 350 ppm. I just checked, and we're now at 412 ppm.

Morning View

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Photo Shop 1984

 

This was my photo shop long before it became Photoshop. I found this picture yesterday while I was looking for something else and thought I would post it. And then I changed my mind. But then I read a good interview with Craig Newmark this morning and decided to post the picture and this really good bit from Craig, discussing his philanthropy in the realm of journalism:

In 2016, you started Craig Newmark Philanthropies. And under that you fund many, many initiatives. In particular, you’ve given millions of dollars away to support journalism and protect press freedom. Why is this such an important issue to you and what do you hope to achieve? The principles are from high school history and civics taught by Mr. Schulzki in 1970. He said, “A trustworthy press is the immune system of democracy.” And yet in 2016, we were attacked by a hostile foreign power using information warfare techniques to place an asset in high office. It’s incumbent upon patriotic Americans to fight back, to work together, and to take the battle to the enemy.

I’m working with people in journalism, cybersecurity, studying disinformation and voter suppression. I’m working to try to protect the country because we are at war. My dad had World War II where he fought in the Pacific; I figure I have what Marshall McLuhan called “World War III,” a guerrilla information war fought without distinction between civilian and military participants. That’s the only thing he said that I ever understood.

https://nobhillgazette.com/the-interview-craig-beyond-the-list/

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Warm Cockles

 

The fact that it was 81 degrees in our living room even before sunrise this morning does not warm the cockles of my heart. And if you've ever wondered where that saying comes from, it appears that a "cockle" is the chamber of a kiln. Our hearts have four chambers--four cockles--to be warmed. 

I believe this is the shell of a Nuttall's Cockle (Clinocardium nuttallii), found on the sand near the mouth of Drake's Estero. It's surprisingly more colorful up close than it appeared at first glance, and I can only wonder what gave the shell its light blue coloration.

In the book The Nature of Nature which I mentioned in a recent post, Enric Sala writes about testing the water for bacterial pollutants in a string of islands, some of which people lived on, while others were uninhabited. On the uninhabited islands, giant clams which, like cockles, are filter-feeders, lived in peace, while on the populated islands they were eaten, and their numbers were greatly reduced. The predictable result was that the water around the clammy islands was pristine, while the water around the people-y islands was filthy with bacteria.

And if you thought, as I did, that cockles just sit there waiting to be eaten, check out this short video of a cockle escaping predation by a sunstar.

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Habitats for Humanity

 

Woodland, marsh, and dune. I've always liked the variety of habitats at Pt. Reyes. Each hosts its own specialized bird life, but some generalists cross the boundaries like shoppers moving down the different aisles in a grocery store.

We had a lot of smoke in my neighborhood last night. It came in around 11 p.m. and we had to close all the windows. The Purple Air numbers were over 200 all around us in Golden Gate Heights, and over 300 around Twin Peaks.

This morning our neighborhood is showing numbers among the lowest in the city. There is no breeze, so maybe the smoke settled near the bottom of the hill, as it did yesterday. It was interesting to check the North Bay Fire Cams this morning and play the timelapse of the Pt. Reyes fires from Barnabe Peak. I started the timelapse before the sun came up, which gave a more clear idea of where the actual flames are. 

I found this coyote (?) skull while I was poking around the marshy area above.

I brought it home and cleaned it up, then put it in my back yard as a decoration. It didn't even last one night before a raccoon chewed it to pieces.

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Spiders of September

 

Click on Image to View Larger

As I was sitting out back just now I noticed this orb-weaver spider in her web spanning part of the width of a basement door that rarely gets opened. I went upstairs to get my camera and brought along a water mister to spray on her web, but the mist didn't really stick. Maybe the strands of the web are just too thin to hold decent sized droplets.

I also remembered to look up the reason why it seems like I see more spider webs in the garden in the late summer and early fall, and the answer was that the females that hatched in spring have finally gotten big enough to notice. The smaller males are roaming the earth in search of females, who will lay their eggs before winter sets in.

And since I already had my camera out, I decided to clean the sensor since I've been putting it off for some time. I put it off because no one has invented a tiny vacuum cleaner or some other easy and effective method of doing the job. It always takes several iterations of snapping a picture of the sky with my 50mm lens stopped down to f/16, then importing the image into Lightroom so I can see where the spots are. Sometimes I'll do the cleaning, only to check the sensor and find it even more spotty than before I cleaned it, which never makes me happy. What does make me happy is when I somehow finally get the thing in good shape.

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