Surprises

Walked into the bedroom and saw a dozen parrots on the neighbor's roof.

 

Many of them were also in the neighbor's oak tree, which he planted as an acorn in the 1960s.

I recently placed one of my trail cams in a new spot, thinking I'd be lucky to catch anything. I turned the camera sensitivity from medium to high so I'd be sure to catch, say, a fox or bobcat slinking through. On other cams, the "high" setting is just a little faster than medium, but on this cam every twitch of a blade of grass fired a series of three still photos. In two weeks it had captured 9,866 frames. That was not a good surprise! Not only did I have thousands of frames of blue skies, there were only a handful of frames with animals in them -- a scrub jay, deer on two occasions, and a couple of nights with a pack rat.

I've been keeping another cam at a different location since November. It was nice to catch this bobcat passing through, but most days caught nothing but squirrels and small birds. Even deer seemed to be staying away.

Coyotes are pretty rare as well.

The surprising thing was how few deer passed through over the weeks.

This spot is a good ways from any hiking trail, but the cams picked up a few mountain bike riders, as well as a couple of hikers and a dog-walker, and I wondered if all the human presence was keeping the animals away.

The tire track left by the mountain biker was still easy to see when I was up there on Feb. 18. No rain in all that time to help wash it away. But no new tracks, surprisingly.

And it seems like the cam is picking up an increase in animals passing by.

And of course the perennial gray squirrels.

Raccoons.

Plenty of gray fox too. Love those paws up on the branch.

It's always a pleasant surprise to capture a bobcat. The cam is set to capture three still shots followed by a 6-second video, so I was looking forward to seeing the cat move through the scene.

But the cat surprised me by stopping to smell the branch for the whole six seconds. Note the cool cat paw.

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Two Oaks

 

Oak Snag Covered In Moss

I opened the curtains when my wife's alarm went off at 5:15 a.m., then got back under the covers to enjoy the view of Venus shining just above the roof next door. I could even see a dim companion star just north of Venus, a novelty when you live among city lights. 

Before going to bed last night I saw Orion in the southern sky and said, "Aha, there you are!" I used to enjoy seeing the constellation near the western horizon on the morning walks I take each workday before sunrise, but it disappeared soon after we went off Daylight Savings Time. There's Orion's belt, dot-dot-dot. Each star just an inch apart. Except that even at the speed of light it would take about six-hundred years to travel from one of those dots to the next.

If you lie in bed staring at Venus long enough you can sort of feel the Earth rotating toward the east as you contemplate the fact that Venus isn't rising; the Earth is spinning. It's kind of cool to picture yourself riding our huge planet like that.

Sunrise with Oak & City Silhouettes

I took the day off to drive up to Mt. Tam to photograph a couple of coast live oaks that have interested me for a while, starting with the moss-covered snag at the top of the post. I've hiked past it many times and no doubt have a million pictures of it on my smartphone, at all times of the year. One day it will topple, and a photogenic landmark will be no more.

Golden Light on Bolinas Ridge

The nearly full moon, now waning, slid toward the horizon, playing peek-a-boo with a few rainless clouds. I couldn't help thinking that Bolinas Ridge should be so much greener by now. My wife has been waiting for it to green up so she can paint a vista to contrast with the one she painted last summer. Before "the new abnormal" we'd have waited for March, formerly one of my favorite months due to the thick green coats of new grass growing on Tam's flanks, but we figure we'd better get what little green we can, while we can.

Calla Lilies

The Walking Oak

Oak Snag, Bolinas Ridge

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Sunsets & Squirrels

Watching the Sunset

The workweek was done, the computer was off, and it was almost time for an Anchor Steam. But the view east from our bedroom window showed some promise for another gorgeous sunset. The clouds were wispy and wind-sculpted in the east, but when I looked out our front windows toward the west the sky appeared to be clear. I didn't see how it would be possible to have such a dramatically different sky from the two viewpoints and wished I could look straight up through the roof to see the dividing line.

Sunset Over the Sunset District

I realized the illusion of a clear western sky was most likely due to the way the light scattered in that direction, so I packed up my DSLR and, instead of the 16-35mm I took last time, I brought a 50mm lens. With Grandview Park just a 5-minute walk away I had plenty of time before the 5:22 p.m. sunset. I was surprised to see so many cars lined up at the base of the stairs. There was even a mini-traffic-jam with cars waiting for each other to parallel park on the sloping, curved street.

Good Ole Mt. Tam

I took the stairs two at a time, as I do every weekday on my morning walk to enjoy the pre-sunrise view. Going back up at sundown was a nice way to bookend the day. Along with the couple of dozen people already up there, I watched as the sun finally sank below the horizon. My phone said the time was 5:26 p.m., at least four minutes later than sunset at sea-level.

Mating Western Gray Squirrels

Meanwhile, one of my camera traps on Mt. Tam has been catching more mountain bike riders than bobcats, or even foxes. (In the two years I've been monitoring this spot I'd never before caught mountain bikers.) By far, though, it has been catching western gray squirrels, although usually just one at a time. I'd always assumed I was seeing the same squirrel every time, but now I realize that probably isn't the case.

Squirrel Festivities

This frame caught four squirrels, with the mating pair and two others zipping through. About the only other time I've seen more than one squirrel at a time on Mt. Tam, it's been around chinquapins when the nuts are ripe enough to eat. On Mt. Tam the chinquapins tend to grow in isolated pockets, so squirrels will congregate there, whereas acorns and bay nuts can be had all over the mountain.

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Spirit Realm

 

View Toward Mt. Tamalpais from Grandview Park

With some interesting cloud formations still holding up toward sunset I thought it might be worth walking over to Grandview Park to take in the show. I was also inspired by a recent post of a mesmerizing sunset by Jackie Sones over at The Natural History of Bodega Head.

I almost didn't go because sunset was going to be at 5:13 p.m., which is right about our usual dinner time. I was hungry, and so was my wife, who'd just gotten home from work. Part of me wanted to blow off the sunset and just get dinner started. I hemmed and hawed about what lens(es) to bring, whether I'd need my tripod, and whether I should drive or walk over, and so on. I finally decided to go, on foot and with just the 16-35mm lens, no tripod.

It's not like my life depended on having all my camera gear, and in fact I even took a few snaps with my phone so I could easily text the sunset back to my wife. The walk over to the park was pleasant, as usual, and several other folks were there to take in the day's transition into night. The height of Grandview Park, a knob of sand and chert we sometimes call Turtle Rock, is just a few hundred feet above the city below, but that's enough to get the magic of being a little closer to the heavens.

Color in the East, View Toward Downtown

Last Light Over the Sunset District

Moon & Clouds with Sutro Tower & Window Reflections

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Green Ferns & High Tides

Upper Cataract Falls

A rough year is over, but at least we have water! Holy cow. Down from "exceptional drought" to only "severe drought"? Heck, I might even wash my car. 

I wanted to bike up to Mt. Tam this morning to check on my trail cams, and also to close out the year doing something fun on a sunny day, although it was a little brisk out there. The National Weather Service showed Mill Valley at 34 degrees just before I left. Thankfully the day warmed up quickly, and it was a mellow ride out of the city and across the Golden Gate, all the way to the end of Sausalito. And then I saw something I'd never seen before:

Flooded Bike Route

The bike path from the end of Sausalito to basically forever was completely submerged by the king tide, which peaked at 6.74 feet at 8:50 a.m. I arrived to shoot the photo above at 9:25 a.m. As I was taking stock of the situation and wondering with a few other people how we were going to proceed -- or even if we were going to proceed -- a big group of cyclists showed up and just kept on going, right on the shoulder of the freeway onramp!

It got better! At the other end of the ramp, the exit to Mill Valley was closed. Completely flooded. Even cars were blocked from getting through. Did that deter the peloton? Not even for a minute. I had jumped on my e-bike right after taking the photo above and was following the pack. All of a sudden we're riding along on the edge of the freeway and going up and over the bridge over Richardson Bay, finally getting off at the first Strawberry exit.

With all my stopping for flood-selfies (getting Mt. Tam in the background) I lost the bike group, but I just followed Hamilton Drive up to Bayfront Park, then picked up Camino Alto to Miller going past Tam High until it turns into Almonte Boulevard. Thankfully Tam Junction wasn't flooded, so I was soon heading up Shoreline Highway. A car would have to take Hamilton to Roque Moraes Drive, then left on E. Blithedale to Camino Alto, then maybe take the short-cut of R. on Miller then L. on Edgewood and up Sequoia Valley to Panoramic. If we decide to go for a hike tomorrow morning, I suspect that's the route we'll take. Gonna be king tides all weekend, thanks to the New Year's New Moon!

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