Woodbridge Ecological Reserve

 

Sandhill Cranes Above & Below, With Mt. Diablo

Sometimes you don't realize how long it's been since you last visited a place, even when your visit was to see, and hear, "the oldest living bird species on the planet." I would not have guessed that it's been ten years since I last drove out to Woodbridge Ecological Reserve to visit the sandhill cranes. When I looked up the reserve in preparation for my trip I found that you now need to buy a California Department of Fish and Wildlife Lands Pass, which can be had for about five bucks a day, but you have to specify the day in advance. I like to keep my schedule open, though, and since the money goes toward conservation, I bought an annual pass for $30.50, and I hope to get a lot more use out of it.

The parking area at the viewing platform seemed much the same as my last visit in January 2012, except for the chickens. It was still dark when I arrived, and when I turned off the car engine, a cock crowed. And then he crowed again. He was sounding off from his roost in a nearby tree, and can still be heard in the video below.

Even though it's been ten years since my last visit, I could still recall to mind the staccato honks of the cranes calling out to each other, a sound that might not have changed in the last 2.5 million years. It was exciting to hear them again in person. They were somewhere off in the dark distance, though, with none close to the viewing platform, so I drove farther up the road until I found a few cranes in a flooded field. Many of the regal birds had yet to stir to life, content to keep their beaks tucked warmly under their wings. 

Distant shotgun pops punctuated a soundscape owned mostly by the companion calls of snow geese and cranes. Both are popular game birds. The cranes tended to gather together in little cocktail party groups, while the snow geese gathered in their multitudes like conventioneers at a HonkerCon.

Once the sun came up, the cranes began to stir and fly off in small groups to their feeding grounds. It wasn't long before the group I'd been watching had dwindled away to nothing, gone like the wind. I drove north on Thornton Road to see if any of the cranes flew off to the nearby Cosumnes River Preserve, but it seemed pretty quiet there. I continued north to the Stone Lakes National Wildlife Refuge which seemed even more quiet, then continued west to pick up CA-160 which heads south on a levee along the Sacramento River. The route criss-crosses the river over draw-bridges built in the 1920s and last rehabilitated more than 60 years ago (see video for crossing of the Steamboat Slough Bridge). Think about that the next time you cross one of these scenic old gems. 

Driving along the levee road was quite enjoyable, with the river right there, some interesting tiny towns along the way, and very light traffic all the way to Rio Vista. My final scenic stop came just before CA-160 crosses a bridge near the confluence of the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, where I pulled onto the shoulder to watch a huge flock of snow geese lift off and spiral back down to a new feeding ground. Green and burly Mt. Diablo ruled the background to the south, and a wind farm backdropped the geese to the north. 

Resting Cranes and Myriad Waterfowl at Dawn

Flocks of Snow Geese Getting An Early Start

The Cranes Begin to Stir

In small groups, the cranes peel away toward their feeding grounds.

Roadside Tree Silhouette

Same Tree in the Morning Sun

Moon Setting Over Almond Orchard

Birds Lifting My Spirits

Layers of the Land

Overflight

Going the Other Way

King of the Viewing Platform

Snow Geese Along Sacramento River South of Rio Vista

SMUD's Solano 4 Wind Project

Mark Your Calendars!

A Cock Crows, A Bridge Is Crossed

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Cloud Drama

 

Storm Clouds Roll Over The City

I'm a sucker for dramatic skies. I always want the window seat on airplanes so I can ogle and photograph the clouds. It's hard to believe these clouds were howling and boiling overhead just yesterday, drenching us with downpours and exciting us with hailstones. Today I drove out to Woodbridge Ecological Reserve to observe the sandhill cranes before they and their friends the snow geese head north, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. 

Once again (yesterday, that is) I'd hoped to catch a rainbow arching over the Golden Gate, the Marin Headlands, and Mt. Tamalpais, but no such luck. During a break in the storm I biked down to Ocean Beach just to be out in the wind and sunshine. Boy, the Giant Camera sure has taken a beating this year. The observation deck is open again, and I enjoyed watching the scintillating silvery sea swells, though I had to squint to keep from burning my eyes out.

I'd already decided not to go back to Grandview Park to try again for a rainbow in the late afternoon since photographing another cityscape doesn't inspire me that much. Instead I kicked back on the couch and continued re-reading my book, The Vital Question, by the biochemist Nick Lane. Excellent stuff. Meanwhile my wife was on the other couch scrolling on her phone when she noticed some of the neighbors out on their balcony, way up the hill. It's pretty rare that we see anyone actually use their balconies, and when they started pointing and taking pictures, my wife said, "I'll bet there's a rainbow!" I bookmarked Nick Lane and we rushed to our back window, and sure enough, there was a pretty decent rainbow. We could see it from our back window, but I grabbed my FZ80 and went outside to snap a photo.

Looks like we've got lots of sunshine forecast for the rest of the week, which is great, but I can't help hoping that February has more rain in store.

Light in the North

Yikes

Liquid Light

Swell Dance

It looked like the tail end, but there was more to come.

Rainbow Over Mt. Sutro

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Metson Lake

 

Common Yellowthroat

Riding my bike through Golden Gate Park on Friday I noticed a large Monterey cypress had toppled into Metson Lake. There was only one pair of ducks on the lake, and none of the geese I frequently see there. No other people either, as it was quite wet. So it was very quiet around that too-green pond. Maybe too quiet. The lone pair of ducks seemed nervous as I approached, with the female quacking quietly as if to say, "Keep an eye on this one." A Golden Gate Park duck that's afraid of human beings? Not bloody likely. Perhaps they'd been present when the tree fell and were still shaken up. As soon as I stopped, the hen commenced to quack in earnest as she flapped and skedaddled across the lake's surface, the drake in close pursuit, and flew away to more congenial grounds. 

Just out of curiosity I checked my photo files this morning to see if I had a picture of the lake showing that fallen tree when it was still standing, but all I found were pictures of birds I'd photographed around the lake back on November 27, 2008, including one of my local favorites, the Common Yellowthroat.

My next stop was Stow Lake, where they are repairing part of the walking path. Either the construction notice got the name of the lake wrong, or they are putting the new path on the wrong lake (see picture below)!

Black Phoebe

Common Yellowthroat

Robin Gets A Berry

Pygmy Nuthatch Finds Water

Young Robin in Cotoneaster Bush

Angry-Looking House Finch Shares A Multicultural Bath

Young White-Crowned Sparrow

Fallen Cypress at Metson Lake on February 3, 2023

Construction Sign for Spreckles Lake at Stow Lake

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Surf and Turf

 

Ocean Beach on Jan. 31, 2023

Monday was an excellent day to watch the surfers enjoying a rare clean swell at Ocean Beach, but the waves got even bigger on Tuesday, and I couldn't resist bringing the camera down to the beach again. Three other photographers were already there, shooting from a high vantage point on the dunes with big-lens 35mm gear (as opposed to my point-and-shoot FZ80). 

The surf was great, and so was the turf. On Wednesday I stopped to check my trail cams on the way to Rock Spring where my wife and I took a hike down to Cataract Falls. I had put the trail cams in the area where I recently saw a lot of buck deer and turkeys, and sure enough the cams recorded numerous deer and turkeys, as well as a passing fox, a coyote, and a herd of band-tailed pigeons. I say "herd" because there were dozens of them roaming all over the ground like cattle, feeding on whatever it is they find in leaf litter.

Despite the recent deluge of rain, the forest on Mt. Tam already seemed to be drying out. We saw very few fungi, and Cataract Creek was quite placid, as were the falls. Fetid adder's tongue was already blooming in its usual places, although some of those places had been reduced in size due to forest debris blown down by the storms. Down by the falls below Laurel Dell, chestnut-brown buckeye nuts were sending their cream-colored roots into the earth, and several very young buckeyes, most of them little more than foot-high unbranched sticks, were just leafing out. Here's hoping they'll get a nice lift with more rain soon.

Poetry in Motion

Ocean Beach, San Francisco

Leader of the Pack
(see video)

Flying Buck

Bucks in the Wee Hours
(the light is from a second cam)

Traveling Stone

Tam Cam

* * *

Chills & Thrills

The cold felt sharp on my bare arms as I watched my wife bike down the hill to work yesterday morning. It was still a few minutes before the sun would rise above Twin Peaks. Thankfully the morning warmed up quite a bit by the time I headed out on my walk to the beach. 

I'd checked the Ocean Beach web cam before leaving, and it looked like the swell had dissipated, so I didn't bring my camera. Which was too bad, because there actually was a swell, and the morning light would have been excellent for surf photography. I watched the action for a while before heading back home, a 45-minute walk, then got on my bike and went back to the beach with the FZ80. The light wasn't as nice by the time I got there, but it was still fun to fire off a few frames.

I watched the action for about 45 minutes, telling myself several times, "Just one more set, and then I'll go." There was no rush, really, except that I was wearing shorts and a windbreaker, which were fine for the bike ride but not so great for standing in one place exposed to the wind and cold. And of course the ride home was into a headwind, so I made haste to help stay warm, and I made a hot bowl of soup when I finally got home.

Tube ride...

...and he makes it out!

Being cold often reminds me of the coldest day I ever experienced, back in January 1982, when Chicago had a record cold day of 26 degrees below zero, with a wind chill making it 81 below. I was only going to be in Chicago for a few months, so I put on my jacket and tried to walk to a movie theater about six blocks away. After three blocks I began to fully appreciate the sensation of being exposed to life-threatening cold, so I popped into a coffee shop to warm up before turning around to head back home. That record cold was broken in 1985 by just one degree, but thankfully I was in California by then.

I found this clip in the New York Times from Jan. 11, 1982:

One of the deepest winter chills on record numbed much of the nation today. It was the coldest day on record for Chicago, at 26 degrees below zero, Fahrenheit. In the most brutal cold spell of the season, records were broken in many other places in the Middle West, and swirling snowstorms and icy winds left scores stranded on highways or without heat in their homes….

The situation was most critical in the Great Lakes region as an Arctic air mass rolled across the Canadian border. In Chicago, winds of 35 to 60 miles an hour made it feel like 81 below, the National Weather Service said. ''This is a real emergency,'' Mayor Jane M. Byrne of Chicago said as she as she convened a meeting of all city department heads to make plans for dealing with the cold, which is expected to continue through most of the week.

Schools were ordered closed Monday, and the Mayor said city buses would be kept idling all night to insure that they could run in the morning.

Ethereal Botany

Water blowing off Lake Michigan coated these tree branches with ice (which I photographed using a colored gel filter) in the winter of '82.

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