Fast Times

Watch on YouTube

Looking out the back window late this morning, my impression was that the clouds were not moving at all. Only when I looked more carefully and used Sutro Tower as a reference point was it apparent that the clouds were lazily sweeping north to south. I set up the DSLR to capture the movement in a timelapse with frames firing every two seconds. 

Normally I have little patience to hang around during a long timelapse, but this time I was able to set it up in the bedroom, then close the door and return to the living room where I could work at my computer without having to listen to the noisy mirror-slap of each frame. 

Maybe there's a mirrorless camera in my future. 

I do enjoy watching clouds in timelapse mode. All that churning and roiling of fluid, chaotic, and evanescent shapes is mesmerizing. I also like to watch other slow things in nature that have been sped up, like plants and mushrooms growing. On the other hand, it's also interesting to see fast things slowed down, like a ladybird beetle taking flight.

Whenever I want a quick fix of timelapsed clouds I run the latest hour captured by various fire lookouts around the state, like these in the Tahoe region or these in the North Bay.

* * *

Bioscapes

(Click images to view larger.)

I like to admire and photograph landscapes as much as the next guy, but I've always been especially drawn to "bioscapes" -- the intimate details of nature. I want to see indigo anthers that haven't fully opened up yet, and others that have exploded with orange pollen grains. I only wish I could render even greater detail, and one of these days I'm going to buy a stereo microscope so I can do just that.

When you start with a landscape, you might pick out individual trees, a river, a wildflower meadow, a section of cliff face, or the peak of a mountain. The bioscape is where you get to the level that isn't available to your unaided eyes. It's like peering into a realm of fantasy, except it's even better because it's real. Somehow -- and no one knows how -- this universe that got its start billions of years ago contained within its initial conditions the ability of atomic elements to organize themselves into living creatures. The intricacy of life is literally mind-boggling, and when I'm doing close-up photography I'm giving my imagination free rein to roam in those intricate worlds.

Come to think of it, it was staring at anthers and trichomes and other botanical fare through dissection microscopes in a botany class in college that first sparked my interest in close-up photography. One day I was out doing nature photography and was awed by the beauty of a species of monkey flower with wildly colorful nectar guides. To better appreciate them I dissected a flower, then set a sheet of glass over the parts to make them lie flat enough to be photographed (this was long before the days of digital photography and focus stacking).

Mimulus cardinalis

* * *

Looking for Compromise

Lying in the dark during the pre-dawn hours of Sunday morning I contemplated driving up to Mt. Tam to find a patch of lupines to photograph with the sunrise. I'd just been up there last week, though, and I couldn't recall seeing a patch that would give me a good vantage point. That meant I'd have to try to find one on the fly, hurrying along after the 7 a.m. gate opening, looking for something that may well not exist. I concluded that such a quest would be futile and require an unnecessary trip in the car, and soon fell back to sleep.

When I finally woke up for good I decided to ride my e-bike up to Mt. Tam. I wanted to update my recent "Then & Now" post with another photo that required the use of my DSLR and 16-35mm lens, so I also had an opportunity to try out something else I've been thinking about. 

I've been wondering if I could continue to pursue my interest in nature photography within an area bounded by the limit of my e-bike range. My carbon footprint would be reduced compared with driving my car, and I'd get some great exercise. I'd compromise speed and range for physical and environmental health.

The result of my little test with the DSLR on Sunday was that it's possible, but I'm not quite prepared equipment-wise. I could easily add a 105mm Micro to my bike kit, but I would still really miss having a tripod. My current tripod is too long and heavy for the bike, so I'd have to find something smaller. 

On the way home I was excited to find this gas station with prices exceeding the $6.00 mark. The last time I bought gas it was $4.65/gal., which I thought was outrageous. We don't drive much, so we've missed the big run-up since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Judging by the traffic I see in the city, especially along 19th Avenue, it doesn't appear that high prices are making much of a dent in people's need or desire to drive. 

The news media and the president focus their hand-wringing on the high prices, but I never hear them suggest that people try to drive less. I suspect to most people the idea of not using their car every day just boggles the mind, like going vegetarian. It makes me think of Dr. Strangelove: how I stopped worrying and learned to love climate change.

* * *

Backyard Beauties

 

The Miner's Lettuce (Claytonia perfoliata) out back has the advantage over its wild kin of having been watered more than nature provided this season.

The basal rosette of this plant, like the many neighbors in its patch, was about as big around as the palm of my hand.

Although it's a very good edible plant, this one ended up in a small vase on the window ledge over our kitchen sink.

* * *

Then & Now

 

West Ridgecrest Road on March 27, 2016

West Ridgecrest Road on March 26, 2022

I went back up on April 3 to see if the little bit of rain we had during the week had made any difference, and I wouldn't say that it did, except that maybe the grass is a little taller, and the poppies bloomed. Another difference between 2016 and 2022 is that the embankment itself seems to be less steep. Even with the 2016 picture in my hand, I was unable to reproduce the same vantage point.

The little bit of rain we've had seems to have pushed the spring season along a little bit, though certainly nothing like we had in 2016. Nevertheless, the hillsides were a more cheerful green than the greenish-yellow we found on our last visit, and there were nice patches of sky lupine here and there. 

Although it was still very dry in the woods, there was lots of birdsong. We heard the easily identified birds such as flicker, acorn woodpecker, robin, red-breasted nuthatch, steller's jay, junco, quail, turkey, chickadee, and western bluebird. And if my Merlin app is to be believed, we also heard warbling vireo, black-throated gray warbler, townsend's warbler, purple finch, violet-green swallow, hermit warbler, and brown creeper.

Beautiful day from the Coastal Trail along Bolinas Ridge, looking out over Stinson Beach and Bolinas. This hike starts at Rock Spring, goes up and over the Old Mine Trail and down to the Matt Davis Trail, then takes the fork up onto the Coastal Trail as far as the Willow Camp Fire Road. From there it goes up and over West Ridgecrest and descends Laurel Dell Road to pick up the Cataract Trail where it swings upstream to close the loop.

* * *

Time of March

There's a saying about "the march of time," and I can see how some people might like their time to be cadenced, orderly, and on the move. But in my own experience it feels like time flows through me like wind through the trees. I shot the photo above in March of 2012, and it's amazing to me that ten years have passed since then. 

Records for San Francisco indicate that rainfall was 70 percent of normal in 2012, directly on the heels of a 66 percent year in 2011. This shot of Lower Cataract Falls was made almost twenty years ago, in March of 2003, a year that saw rainfall at 107 percent of normal.

The 2020 and 2021 rainfall years were both below 50 percent of normal.

And I suspect this year will be similar.

I was browsing through my Mt. Tam images to find out what I've seen and photographed in March in other years. Even though I could probably find images like these again this year, my heart isn't in it.

And come to think of it, I haven't even seen a calypso orchid yet this year. Not that I think there aren't any, but they certainly aren't jumping out at me.

When I biked up to the mountain to check my trail cams I was dismayed by how dry it seemed. It felt like summer, and it was even starting to get a little buggy.

Walking the animal trail through the woods was as noisy as walking on corn flakes. Birds called from the woods. Holding my phone, I waited slightly impatiently for a couple of hikers to pass. "Do you see a hawk?" one of them asked. No, I said, I'm trying to get a recording of that birdsong so my Merlin app can identify it. 

Yellow-rumped warbler. Farther along I thought the app was getting it wrong. Could that really be a dark-eyed junco? But the app was insistent. Still farther along, ruby-crowned kinglet, western bluebird. All birds I can identify by sight, and even by some of their sounds, but nesting season breeds rare songs.

The bobcats and coyotes might be hanging out lower on the mountain. None have passed by the cams in a good while.

I tried another chaparral set-up that I had high hopes for, with this nice little view up an arroyo.

But there was surprisingly little activity there. A fox and a jackrabbit crossed the arroyo, and a few deer browsed their way down through the middle of the frame. One of the deer had a very big, round belly and was probably expecting her fawn very soon.

It was so dry that I decided to pull up stakes and move both cameras.

I'm down to two cams now. One was stolen, another washed away in a flood, and a third one stopped working. 

I haven't decided where to put the cams next, so for the time being I put one of them in our tiny back yard. In the meantime, here's hoping we get some decent rain the rest of the month.

* * *

On the Rocks

 

My wife wanted to do some painting along Bolinas Ridge, so I brought my camera along to poke around nearby. I was surprised to find this little manzanita blooming like crazy despite being so prostrate on its rocky foothold. I look forward to checking up on its progress over the coming years. I hadn't been in this area much in a long time and didn't recall there being a manzanita here. Nearby there used to be a reliable patch of goldfields, but the bunchgrass seems to have taken over their spot. 

This being our third consecutive year of drought, there might not have been any goldfields anyway. The hillsides were certainly not as green as we'd hoped. My wife has been waiting for months to return to a particular vantage point to paint it in a different season, but the difference this year isn't all that dramatic. I brought a water-mister to put a little touch of spring on the pink manzanita blossoms.

After photographing the manzanita, which I can only guess to be Mt. Tam Manzanita (Arctostaphylos montana) -- one of about eleven manzanita species in Marin County -- I investigated the rocks for interesting semi-abstract macro landscapes.

Although I found little of special interest, it was supremely enjoyable to be out on the mountain to do some photography and mosey around for some slow-paced exploration. I tried to will a bobcat into a nice meadow scene but got no takers. A coyote had crossed the road in front of our car on the way up, so I at least didn't have to go home virtually empty-handed as far as wildlife sightings.

I packed up my camera and returned to the ridge where my wife was still working on her painting and used my binoculars to watch a couple of red-tailed hawks soaring on the wind. A couple talkative ravens passed overhead several times, and a small flock of band-tailed pigeons flapped by, heading toward the woods behind us. With a chilly breeze blowing in off the ocean, it was a beautiful morning to just sit in the sun and take in the long view up and down the coast. Maybe next time we'll bring a picnic.

* * *