Pier 39 Sea Lions

 

Sittin' by the dock of the bay, wastin' time.

One of my nephews is graduating from law school on Friday, so my sister and her husband are in town, staying at Fisherman's Wharf (which apparently has the most reasonably priced -- i.e., not $800/night -- hotels). I wish we had a guest room at our place, but even if we did it would probably be filled with art stuff. 

Anyway, despite being surrounded by chowder bowls and fried seafood we managed to find pretty good veggie sandwiches for lunch at the Boudin Bakery, then mosied on down to Pier 39 to visit one of the biggest crowds of sea lions I've ever seen hauled out on the floating docks there. Apparently they've been drawn in by huge numbers of anchovies. On the way to the pier we watched a lone sea lion who'd caught a crab as he chewed it up while gulls hovered overhead hoping for scraps.

Even though I'm home now, I can still hear the barking and belching of all those huge animals, and the smell.... You know how the smell of cigarettes gets in your clothes if you've been around smokers? It's kinda like that. And the wind was blowing it right onto us with enough force to create whitecaps on the bay.

Full House at Pier 39

Ah, the life.

Still wet and gleaming.

Territorial Tussle

Statuesque Sea Lion

Scritchin' and Scratchin'

Brown pelicans at rest on the edge of the bay.

King of the Docks

Snoozing with a belly full of anchovies.

A brief clip of the bunch.

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Yard Critters

 

Coco in the Garden

I recently brought the Tam Cams home and put them in our little garden to see who's been coming around lately. No real surprises, but a raccoon with a hairless tail came through, and I wonder if it's the same one that's been coming around for a couple of years.

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Morning on the Mountain

Bolinas Ridge View

 My wife took the day off yesterday to rejuvenate her spirit on Mt. Tam, so we took a short hike out to my trail cam location before heading out to find a good picnic spot to celebrate Beltane with bugs above Bolinas. While my wife painted watercolors in both locations, I poked around with the FZ80. 

There were lots of California poppies in the neighborhood along the ridge, as well as numerous small black flies that were dancing in the air around us. They never seemed to alight on anything, so I couldn't get a picture of them. But while I was taking pictures of various insects among the poppies I might have caught one by accident, although it was being preyed upon by a flower spider.

I've posted a short video below from the Tam Cam's latest location, including an intimate view of a young buck browsing on manzanita leaves in the wild. One of the clips is mainly about the morning birdsong, so be sure to have your speakers on. Incidentally, the GBGB birds were singing like crazy up there yesterday.

This guy puts the "giant" in giant crane fly. It sailed toward us as we hiked up Lagunitas-Rock Spring Road, then veered away and bounced ungracefully through the jungle of trailside plants before settling to rest on this young madrone.

Blue-eyed grass contemplating its shadow.

I've always called these zygadene lilies, but it has since been placed in a new genus as Toxicoscordion fremontii. It's also known as death camas (as the new genus implies), although a 150-pound person would have to consume three to nine pounds of the plant to get a fatal dose. 

We were in the neighborhood of the sickle-leaved onions, and although more were in bloom than I saw last time, there were still not very many. The critter-browsed leaves made them look even smaller.

As soon as I snapped the photo, the flower spider ducked behind the petals. At the time I hadn't even been able to tell what I'd just photographed.

I was surprised when I got home and saw that I'd caught a flower spider with some kind of fly in its grip. The fly looks like one of the many we experienced dancing in the air around us, but I can't say for sure.

A tussle of fluttering wings drew my attention to a pair of butterflies that presumably were mating. The pictures were blurry from the action, but they soon parted ways, leaving this one to cling peacefully to a stalk of grass while basking in the sun.

I caught this small beetle as it was exiting a poppy flower, presumably sated and ready to move on to its next adventure.

Only a tiny percentage of the poppies had insects in them, so I improvised with some non-native pinks.

Here's a pair of earwigs doing whatever earwigs do. The corolla looks pretty munched, so they might have started with the petals before moving down to the pollen and nectar. Although you can't tell from this shot, the other earwig did not appear to have horns (called forceps) on its hind end. This 1975 paper lists 10 species of earwig in California. Apparently they can fly, although thankfully they rarely do.

This little fella has pollen stuck all over itself.

Dual poppies with a duo of flies (one of which is airborne).

The darker fence lizard appeared to be the dominant reptile, but it only seemed to investigate its neighbor rather than tussle with it or give chase. Much of the time they shared the rock quite close to eachother.

But it was always the dark one, flashing blue, who showed who's boss.

A few clips from the Tam Cam, one of which is included specifically for the birdsong in the background.

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Mile Rock Beach

 

Huge Ochre Sea Stars & Anemone, Mile Rock Beach, San Francisco

It could be, at least a little bit, that I haven't seen sea stars in so long that I forgot how big they are, but almost all of the ones I saw at Mile Rock Beach today were huge. The mussel beds clinging to the shore rocks were in great shape and no doubt help the sea stars (which eat them) get so big.

I biked out there, taking a dirt trail from Land's End, and arrived at just about the peak of low tide around 11 a.m. And I was glad it was a minus tide because some good-sized swells were constantly looming up and thundering against the shore. 

Peering in to the few tidepools I could reach, I didn't see much going on, and it was probably too much to expect to see any dainty little nudibranchs in such a powerful surf zone. Nevertheless, I was pleasantly surprised to find so much shore life right here in San Francisco. In addition to the main creatures in the photo above, you can also find aggregating anemones, barnacles, a couple of chitons, crusty-looking sponges, and some kelp. 

Low tide with what's left of the old Mile Rock Light circled in red.

A host of limpets of various sizes waits for the incoming tide, surrounded by barnacle cases.

A pink sponge (at least, I think that's what it is) holds on against a tide of aggregating anemones.

The 7.5-foot swell (according to these guys) made low tide seem a little less low.

The swells plowing into the big rock blocking the view of the Golden Gate Bridge were the most thunderous of all. Just the sound of it kind of gave me the willies as I got as close to the edge as I dared.

Healthy Mussel Bed

Two-tone ochre sea star casually lounging in the tidal zone.

The lined shore crab was putting something in its mouth, but I don't think it was pieces of sea star. However, like many animals that are mostly plant eaters (plants being easier to catch), these crabs are omnivorous.

Gooseneck barnacles among the mussels.

Another lined shore crab, just before it ducked under a rock, stage left.

This western gull landed on the mussel bed and got busy plucking food right away. I couldn't see what it was eating and thought, because it was so busy, that it must be easy-to-catch algae...

...until I zoomed in on the picture when I got home. In this crop of the previous photo, you can just make out a tiny claw on the creature in the gull's beak.

This was a very handsome gull, and definitely provided a contrast against a bunch of young gulls and ravens that I saw fighting over some trash on the Great Highway as I rode home.

Okay, time to get out of here....

I locked up to the post with the same cable and U-lock combo I use when I lock my bike to a tree on Mt. Tam. I also took the battery with me. Not that I think bike theives frequent this area, but I figure a heavy e-bike with no battery isn't going to be anyone's idea of a joy ride.

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Monday Snaps

 

Red-tailed Hawk on the Lookout

Hawks, gulls, ravens, and pigeons are a common sight on light poles along the Great Highway next to Ocean Beach. Hawks use them as hunting perches, while the other birds usually use them for resting. This hawk was being harassed by a raven when I stopped my bike to check him out. I'd hoped to get a shot of the raven dive-bombing the hawk, but the raven flew away as soon as I got my camera out.

Before I left on my walk to the beach this morning I noticed it was hardly windy at all outside my windows, so I double-checked Windy.com to see if the coast was calm where I've been wanting to go tidepooling. The web site showed pretty strong winds, so I left home not quite convinced -- until I got my first look at the ocean. There were whitecaps out to the horizon, but they did not start until a mile or so off the coast. It was kind of interesting to see the wind coming in at such an angle that it missed the immediate coast here while pummeling the coast farther south.

I wondered if this hawk was one of the pair that I often see perching high on the blades of the nearby Murphy Windmill.

The wind had picked up quite a bit by the time I was near the beach on my bike, but the hawk had no trouble keeping its footing. When he took off, the wind carried him away so fast I didn't even see which way he went. That is, by the time I took my eye away from the camera's viewfinder he was gone. A nearby raven squawked, but only once.

Earlier on my walk down Ortega Street I saw this battered, but still alive, red admiral butterfly on the sidewalk and wondered if a bird had taken a swipe at it. That's a lot of wing to lose. (Closer to home I saw a lot of pipevine swallowtails but couldn't get a shot with my phone.)

Rock Purslane near the beach.

Wind-blown sand had closed the Upper Great Highway between Lincoln Way and Sloat Boulevard.

The great blue heron crossed MLK Jr. Drive to see if the grass was greener on the other side. It patiently endured passing joggers, dog-walkers, bike riders, a lady trying to get close enough for a phone-snap, and even a thundering garbage truck (which seemed to frighten it the most). The cross street is Chain of Lakes Drive, which also had a lot of motor vehicle traffic on it.

He'd just made a stab at what I assume was a gopher, but missed.

He had to take cover in the tall grass a couple of times when the humanity became too much.

He was determined to catch some lunch though. When he folded up a leg to settle in for perhaps a long wait for something to poke its head out of a hole, I decided it was time to get home to feed the cat and get some lunch of my own.

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