Poetic Light

I got up earlier than usual this morning and figured I might as well get out of bed and start the day. That got me up to Grandview Park earlier than usual, and it got me thinking about the different viewing opportunities offered at different times of the day. A few of the past few days have been so foggy in the morning that you can't see the houses at the bottom of the hill, only to turn clear and sunny a few hours later.

Anyway, this morning was one of the most beautiful I've seen since I started these work-from-home walks. The low sunlight blazing from the East Bay showed off the contours of the Marin Headlands and Mt. Tamalpais to excellent effect. It was the kind of beauty that just opens you up and fills you with a sense of the sublime, like a favorite poem that strikes just the right chord. 

Joseph Campbell, by way of James Joyce, called such moments "aesthetic arrest," and felt they could be induced by great art as well as nature. Aesthetic arrest is that moment where the ripples of time recede to insignificance upon a broad sea of eternity.

This is a crop of the same image to give a better idea of the light on the distant landscape. I was tempted to go home and get my 35mm camera, but even before I finished my short walk, tendrils of fog started to feather in from the south. It wasn't much longer before the fog closed down all vistas beyond a hundred feet or so. Had I begun my walk at the usual time I would have missed the show.

Just yesterday, meanwhile, I noticed the fog was at about the right level to go for glory. It was only the second time since the lock-down that I was able to catch one, and it didn't last long. The sun would start to break through the fog behind me (to the east), only to heat up the atmosphere and make the fog rise and obliterate the glory. The antisolar point has also moved south from the last time I captured a glory, making the window of opportunity that much more brief. Soon it will be impossible to capture from this side of the hill.

After this morning's poetic brilliance, followed by a foggy whiteout, I figured the sun would eventually come out in time for my mid-day bike ride down to the beach. When it was time to go I looked out the back window to see how windy it was, and was surprised to see water droplets on the glass. Minutes later I could hear rain falling on the plastic skylight over our stairwell! Rain?! The National Weather Service forecast for today was "mostly sunny." I decided to skip the ride and go ahead and make some lunch, but the rain was short-lived, and soon the wind was breaking things up. I hoped my lunch was digested enough when I rolled down the hill in buffeting winds.

When I saw the container ship heading into the Golden Gate I pulled over along the Esplanade to snap a picture. I took this shot thinking I would get a more clever image when the ship moved in to be framed between Seal Rocks and the Cliff House, but I ended up preferring the composition of this frame.

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Lassen in June

This was the first week of June, 2007, and if I remember right, this is still-frozen Lake Helen (elev. 8,200 ft.), with Mt. Lassen in the background.

Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel

Clark's Nutcracker

Mt. Lassen from Manzanita Lake, not frozen at 5,900 feet.

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Coast Trail

Although I totally support the protests against police brutality and racism, I'm glad we were able to watch the Golden Gate Bridge being blocked by protesters on the evening news, long after we had crossed it to get home. We left home even earlier today to set out on a different Mt. Tam loop than yesterday's, again returning to cross the bridge well before noon.

I believe this bouquet of lovelies is Golden Yarrow (Eriophyllum confertiflorum).

It was chilly and windy when we started, sometime before 8 a.m., but the air was beautifully clear. I even saw the Farallons for the first time in weeks. It seemed so close from our Bolinas Ridge vista that I thought it was a container ship at first.

We had long stretches of the trail to ourselves, which was a nice surprise. The Matt Davis Trail can be especially busy at times. Being early birds helps. By the time we circled back to Rock Spring via the Cataract Trail, we encountered all the people who start hiking at 10 a.m., and as we did so I thought of it as the Cataract Trail Superhighway, even though we probably crossed paths with no more than 20-25 people, far less than we'd encounter in single block around our neighborhood shopping district.

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Opening Up

The Rock Spring parking lot was open again. This is the first weekend it's been open since it all shut down a couple months ago. My wife and I were eager to walk on mountain trails once again, and it was a gorgeous day to be in the woods, and also to find a spot where we could take in the long view out toward Mt. St. Helena.

Although the coastal hillsides have very little green left, the woods still seem lush, with lots of new horsetail coming up along parts of Cataract Creek.

We stopped by Potrero Meadow where I checked up on the old geocache which I didn't find until May of 2014. It had been sitting out there since 2011. This morning it didn't appear that anyone had been in there in a long time, but in fact someone had been in the box as recently as August 2019.

It was great to open up to the wild again, to get some of that natural nectar made of sunshine and wind, scent of forest and meadow, to feel the trail under our feet, surrounded by birdsong and butterflies, to watch a browsing buck in its velvet antlers and a pair of coyotes that traversed a hillside that was going to gold with wind-blown grasses half as high as the coyotes, and all with so few people around that you feel you have it to yourself.

Even this fence lizard was opening up to new growth: I'd never seen a lizard shedding it's skin before. Its camouflage was so brilliant I probably wouldn't have seen it if my wife hadn't drawn my attention. Once the optometrists are open again I'll have to drop by for some glasses that I've been putting off getting for a long time. The woods are getting increasingly impressionistic, and I just flat-out miss little details like camouflaged lizards.

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Hummer at Twinberry Flowers

Although I'd just photographed Fern Canyon and Roosevelt elk around Gold Bluffs Beach back in June 2008, I still remember being most grateful for having gotten a photo of a tiny Allen's hummingbird feeding on native twinberry flowers (Lonicera involucrata) (not to be confused with twin flowers, Linnaea borealis). I'd first encountered twinberry growing along Redwood Creek between Muir Woods and Muir Beach.

I might have been especially pleased because I'd often photographed these hummingbirds in the man-made gardens of Strybing Arboretum, and there was something special about finally photographing them in a wild and natural setting where the birds are much less accommodating of close proximity to people. 

On my bike ride yesterday I noticed that Strybing Arboretum is open again, at least at the front entrance. The back entrance (nearer Stow Lake) was still closed. Unfortunately, campgrounds up around Redwood National Park are still closed, and I'm not too hopeful they will open at all this month.

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Yard Cat

This neighborhood cat is just the right blend of wild and domestic. She spends all her time outdoors but enjoys human company (especially if it involves ear-scratching).

Sometimes the wildlife camera actually does capture wildlife. It's pretty rare that a raccoon makes a daytime appearance, though. Cheeky.

The cat likes to sleep in several places, mostly at either of my next-door neighbors' yards (using the term "yard" very loosely). Sometimes she wants to be in the sun, other times she'll opt for the shade.

Lately, though, she decided to take her cat-naps directly in front of the wildlife camera, resulting in about 400 frames per day that look like this.

And this.

Sometimes the raccoon will saunter through, only to be followed minutes later by the cat, who I'm pretty sure is afraid of raccoons, and probably for good reason.

Kit-Kat, aka Fuzz, aka Coco.

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Battery Check

The latest update from Mt. Tam State Park is still, as I write this, the one from way back on May 1. Yes, it seems like the first of May was a long time ago. While I remain hopeful that they'll open the mountain to vehicle access this month, I'm glad my two-battery ebike system can get me up there in the meantime. I rode up on Sunday morning, leaving the house at about 9 o'clock.

View of the Marin Headlands from the cyclist's side of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Nice to see that Sausalito was ignored by looters.  

I reached Mt. Tam at about 10:45, which makes the ebike trip about one hour longer than driving up in my car. The yellow mariposa lilies (Calochortus luteus) are now in bloom. I didn't see any just a week ago.

Even though I had only a week's worth of material on the wildlife cams, I wanted to check up on them since I'd placed two of them in slightly different spots. I'd also set them to shoot very brief six-second videos in addition to capturing still frames. Two of the cams were loaded with Eneloop Pro batteries and had plenty of juice left, but the third cam, loaded with regular Eneloops, was almost out of juice already. I ordered another eight-pack of the Pros today.

Unfortunately, I'm getting just a bit too close to the animals with this camera placement.

In case you weren't sure what that critter in the still shot was, here's a frame-capture from the video.

And one more.

A composite with Buck and Gray Fox.

Another composite with Fawn and Jackrabbit. I actually saw the fawn and its mom live and in person when I was up there on Sunday. So cute. They were right on the edge of a small meadow, staring at me. By the time I got my phone out, the camera app on, and the 3X "telephoto" dialed in, the deer had slipped into the forest, out of sight.

I was disappointed to see that my only bobcat of the week zipped through the frame before the camera's trigger engaged. I had it set to fire three frames, and this was the first. The next two, as well as the following video clip, were blank. I have the least expensive model, and the specs on that page don't even mention the trigger speed. Elsewhere I've seen it advertised as half a second, which is more than twice as slow as a similarly priced Bushnell, which triggers in two-tenths of a second. Normally I don't place the cams so close to a cross-trail because of the slow trigger speed, but I am actually hoping with this placement to catch critters walking toward the camera.

I was really impressed with how green everything still was in the woods on May 31st. The forest floor was still damp enough that the leaves didn't crunch underfoot.

A few wild turkeys foraged in the grass next to the Rock Spring parking lot.

View on YouTube

About a half-minute smartphone pan of the forest with birdsong.

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Greetings from San Francisco

The news this morning was full of nationwide protests that had ranged from righteous to violent the night before, including a drive-by shooting of security guards at the federal courthouse across the bay. I've been in that courthouse many times, and just last week put in a 12.5-hour day with the environmental organization I work for, filing motions to join three lawsuits being heard in courtrooms in that building to protect people in the City of Richmond from coal-dust pollution, which kills much more slowly than bullets do, or for that matter, a police officer's weight on a citizen's neck. 

I biked into the office this morning and was surprised and glad to find Market Street as mellow as can be, with protests planned for the afternoon. Heading home along the waterfront, still before noon, I saw that the Ferry Building's farmer's market was on, and noted that everything seemed pretty normal despite the horror and tragedy going on elsewhere. 

I was reminded of a time at Headwaters Outdoor School where a group of us sat in a circle as two of us held a pair of lovely, lively chickens that were destined to become our dinner that evening. All of us sat in attentive reverence as their necks were wrung, and I recall watching their bright-red combs fade to some neutral color as they died. 

As I looked down in front of my feet while the chickens' lives faded away, I saw a busy trail of ants gathering seeds and showing no sign of any perturbation in The Force. The killing was done, and life went on. 

Life and death, action and reaction. The callous murder of an innocent man. The burning of cities in rage. The laws of life can be cold, yet the beautiful sadness of being human is almost preturnaturally warm. It might not give comfort, but the way of truth doesn't give a rat's pink derierre about making us feel comfortable.  

View Toward Alcatraz

When my wife heard last week's news that Pier 45 had burned, she mourned the loss of the Musée Mécanique (donate) which holds special significance for her. Back in 1996 when we met, she told me her dream job would be to guide tours of San Francisco, and Laffing Sal would have been a key stop. Thankfully, as we learned only after my wife's tears of sadness had fallen down her cheeks, the museum survived. On my way home this morning I had to take a picture of the "Thank You SFFD" sign out front.

With all the talk of super-busy bike shops (including my own, Everybody Bikes), I was surprised this morning to find nine bikes that seem to have been all but abandoned in the bike cage at work.

The view from yesterday: Grandview Park lost in the fog.

I was chillin' with the neighborhood cat when I asked her opinion of the coronavirus. I couldn't agree more with her reply.

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Heat Wave

Day 1, Tuesday, May 26, 2020: For the first time in a long time--maybe the first time since the shelter-in-place began--it is warm enough to take my morning walk without a longjohn top or windbreaker.

Day 2: Morning fog has formed over the ocean and the entrance to San Francisco Bay, but it's still warm enough to walk in shorts and a t-shirt.

Day 3: Windy and cold this morning, so the longjohn top was on again. It seems to me that the city usually gets three days of sunny weather during these heat waves, so I'm a little disappointed that we only got two days this time. Last year we got an unusual four days of very warm weather (and I'm talking about warm all the way to the coast, not just east of Twin Peaks), and that was almost too much sun for us fog-dwelling folk in the Sunset District. 

When the heat waves come, I bring our only fan upstairs from storage. We close all the curtains during the day to keep the sun out, and we open the windows at night to let the cool air in. I've suffered through summers without air conditioning in Davis and Sonora; now my air conditioning is provided by fog. 

When the trees are dripping like they were this morning, I'm reminded of Coast Redwoods which depend on the fog for moisture, and I'm also reminded of a time or two that I've been seriously cold while encountering large puddles of water in redwood forests--in August--with scorching sunshine just a few minutes' hike away.

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Mountain Critters

Composite Critter-Cam

Although this is a composite of three image captures, the fox, jackrabbit, and coyote are depicted where they appeared in each frame.

Mt. Tam, May 22, 2020

On May 1, as the scrub jay gathers nesting material, you can see some of the sickle-leaved onions coming up, but there are no flowers yet.

Just a couple of weeks later, the onions' pink flowers are everywhere. This is another composite frame of course. One thing I forgot to do when I re-set this cam on my previous trip was to make sure there wasn't anything in front of the lens that would move in the wind and create false triggers. That blade of grass in front of the chipmunk led to thousands of useless frames. I got the card home and downloaded a record 6,901 files, which used up 29.4 GB of the 32 GB card.

Buck in the Rain

Lizard Cam

This used to be a popular (unauthorized) route for mountain bikers, and the authorities tried to decommission it by blocking it with dead wood. This was the only time since the cam has been in place at this spot that it caught any humans passing through. Pretty much the only people up high on the mountain during the lockdown are park and watershed employees doing various maintenance tasks, and bike riders.

Lucky for the mouse, unlucky for the fox: two captures made hours apart.

When I headed into the woods to check my trail cams, I was surprised, and yet not surprised, when I encountered a guy enjoying the morning who'd obviously spent the night. I was surprised because I never expect to run into anyone off-trail, but I was not surprised since I know I'm not the only one who likes to roam around. As I walked through "camp" I saw that he'd leaned his bike against an oak tree that I've previously placed my camera in. His hammock was also slung very near another spot I've set the cams at.

Passing Bucks

A casual hiker going through this area would have been unlikely to spot this cam, and even though this location hasn't picked up any humans, I wondered if the camping guy would wander up this way after seeing me enter the woods without coming back out the way I went in. After swapping cards and batteries, I moved this cam to the base of the big Doug fir, even though it makes the cam much more visible to anyone who might pass by. Fingers crossed that it's still there next time I go back.

Mama & Fawn

Billy the Wonder Squirrel

You can't do as nice a composite with sunny-day frames because the shadows move through the day.

Squirrel & Bunny Composite

I was probably as surprised to find the bike-camper as I was to find a pair of fresh grisette mushrooms (Amanita pachycolea). According to California Mushrooms grisettes typically fruit from late fall through mid-winter, yet this guy had just recently burst forth from the earth and was still fresh and pretty on May 22.

This was the first time I rode all the way from home. My ebike has a 500 watt-hour battery, and I do believe I could probably just make it to Mt. Tam and back, about 45 miles round-trip, if I used "battery off" mode whenever I could (on flats and downhills). But I decided to banish "range anxiety" once and for all by purchasing a second battery.

The battery weighs about five pounds and fits nicely in the top Topeak bag I have on the rack. When I locked my bike to a tree so I could hike out to the critter cams, I removed the frame-mounted battery and hid it, along with the bike bag and my helmet, to help ensure it would all still be there when it was time to go home.

Northside Vista Point

A park ranger who'd just let a car head up toward Rock Spring was re-locking the gate across from the Pantoll parking lot when I arrived Friday morning. Employees have work to do up there, but the public is still being kept out, unless you get there on foot or bicycle. It appears the closure will continue through the holiday, which is quite disappointing, especially to my wife who doesn't ride.

View on YouTube

I could hear a chainsaw in the distance at one point, but the woods were alive with birdsong. Here's a minute's worth I recorded on my smartphone.

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