Camo Cat

 

We semi-adopted this neighborhood cat around the time she started showing up in pictures caught by my back-yard trail cam in 2016. By semi-adopted, I mean that we feed her, a practice I started when I reasoned that a well-fed cat would be less inclined to try to eat the juncos, California towhees, scrub jays,  and hermit thrushes that also use the back yard garden. Despite the excellent natural camouflage she has when snoozing on piles of leaves, she's not a great stalker (maybe she's too well-fed to make an effort). I've seen her take an interest in gophers a few times without ever making a serious pounce. What she really likes to pounce on is a can of Friskies Turkey with Giblets.

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Mono Lake

 

Mono Lake Vista Point

When I stopped at the Mono Lake overlook on my recent excursion to the east side of the Sierra, one of the things I checked was whether a land bridge had formed out to Negit Island. As the FZ80 shot above shows, there is still water between the mainland and the island. I assumed all was well, and even as I drove past the lake along I-395 I didn't really notice just how low the lake level actually was. As of July it is 12.5 feet below the 6,392-foot "management level" prescribed for the lake.

One thing I hadn't realized about the land bridge is that the coyotes that threaten nesting gulls apparently don't need the bridge to go all the way to the island since they will cross shallow water. I also had forgotten that gulls stopped nesting on Negit Island since coyotes went over there in 1977. Instead they nest on other nearby islets. 

In 2017, the Mono Lake Committee installed an electric fence to keep coyotes from threatening the nesting gulls, and camera traps showed that the fence worked. This year the lake level was just high enough that they did not deploy the fence, but they did set up camera traps. No coyotes were seen on the land bridge during the early part of the April-August nesting season. 

Although I stopped at the Mono Lake County Park for a rest break on my last trip, I didn't even walk down to the lake shore, much less visit Black Point or the tufa reserves. Just being out near the lake and seeing it from the highway provides a rejuvenating sense of wonder and awe. It's all too easy to take for granted that it will always be there to enjoy.

* * *

Back to Nature

 

Summer at the Golden Gate

Some things never change, like summer fog in the Golden Gate, or flocks of pelicans soaring along the coastal bluffs. 

I was looking for a bike ride the other day that was a little longer than usual, so I pedaled my ebike over the bridge to Tennessee Valley, part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The first surprise was finding that the formerly rough, pot-holed, dirt parking lot at the end of the road had been completely paved. The second surprise was finding that the horse stables and ranger housing half-way down to the beach were no longer in use and were going back to nature. (The decision to close the lower T.V. stables was made back in late 2013, and the Horse Mounted Patrol that was housed there has been moved to Rodeo Valley.)

I rode out the dirt road to the Haypress Camp and parked my bike to eat the apple I'd brought with me, then took out my FZ-80 while California quail, scrub jays, and northern flickers capered around the campground. It was sunny, warm, quiet, sheltered from the wind, full of bird life, and in general just about the exact opposite of my home in San Francisco. After filling up my spirits at that little nature sanctuary, I coasted back down the rutted dirt road to the main trail and toward the beach.

On the way I kept my eyes peeled for wildlife, stopping here and there to scan the hills and meadows more carefully. It was pretty much mid-day, so I had more hope than actual expectation, and indeed I didn't see any wildlife other than birds. The heyday of looking for bobcats to photograph was ten years ago, back in 2012. There were three very healthy male bobcats (nicknamed DeNiro, Redford, and Rocky) that occasionally made themselves available to be photographed by hunting in the open. They were plainly accustomed to having people around since Tennessee Valley has always been a very popular place.

As I was checking out the abandoned stables I wondered if the area was better wildlife habitat now or before. It seems like a given that the landscape, if left to itself, would provide better habitat than a landscape with more human influence, but I'm not so sure. Can formerly productive fields and meadows become too densely overgrown? Is all human presence to be considered "disturbance," or is some of it actually conducive to wildlife? Hopefully the park service and/or others have taken this great opportunity to make a study of it. 

Young Redtailed Hawk on the Hunt

Paved Paradise

California Quail Chicks

Papa Keeping Watch

Northern Flicker on the Fence

Young Flicker

Picnic Area Near Former Stables

Trail to Tennessee Cove

Cardinal Meadowhawk

Tennessee Cove

Tennessee Cove in 2011, Before the Earth Portal Caved In

Cliff Selfie

Tennessee Valley

Great Egret Hunting the Tidal Flats of Richardson Bay

* * *

Summer Settles In

 

Ravines Along Bolinas Ridge, Matt Davis Trail

I can't help it. I can "be here now" and enjoy the warmth and cheer of sunshine and the evocative scent of rosinweed wafting in the air, but the harder summer sets in, the more I look forward to a return of the wet season. And of course there's always a bit of trepidation mixed in, since the wet season isn't a given. 

As I went through my exercise routine this morning I listened to a news report on the radio about how hot it has been in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where folks were cooling off at a water park. I thought they were lucky, that they had the saving grace of water aplenty.

But I just looked it up, and it turns out they aren't much better off than we are. The whole state is in moderate to extreme drought, with zero rain in the last 40+ days being recorded at Will Rogers Airport in the center of the state. Tulsa is east of there, in the moderate drought zone, but to escape the moderate-level drought zones altogether you'd have to go much farther, say east of the Ohio River or north of the upper Mississippi.

As we found to my pleasant surprise on our hike a few days ago, there is still water flowing on Mt. Tamalpais, even up at the level of the Matt Davis Trail where it heads up the coast through the Doug fir, the oak and bay laurel, and the bigleaf maple. The spot where the creek crosses the trail is a little oasis of wet and green. It's too small an area to really want to linger over and fully savor, yet I still felt a tug of regret as we hiked past it all too quickly. Other than Cataract Creek, I don't believe we saw any other surface water on our hike, although there is a seep along the Coastal Trail below the hang-gliding launch area.

On the way up the Cataract Trail we encountered a small field of purple dots sprinkled among the brittle stalks of tawny grass: farewell-to-spring. I was sure I couldn't do justice  to the scene's intricate beauty with the FZ-80 I was carrying, and maybe not even if I'd had the D800. 

We had arrived at Rock Spring with only one other car in the parking lot. We hiked a leisurely loop via the Old Mine Trail to Matt Davis, then up the Coastal Trail and up and over West Ridgecrest at the Willow Camp Fire Road, then down the Laurel Dell Fire Road to the Cataract Trail to close the loop. We didn't cross paths with a single soul until we were within sight of the car at Rock Spring.

Cloud Surf, View from Old Mine Trail

* * *

Urban Quail

 

Quail on Look-Out Duty, Strybing Arboretum

The California Quail, our State Bird since 1931, was named San Francisco's "official bird" twenty-one years ago this month. The last time I photographed one of the handsome males in Strybing Arboretum was in 2008. It was always such a joy to hear and see quail in the arboretum, whether bustling across the trail with a line of newborn chicks in tow, or hopping up onto a park bench to provide early warning of danger from hawks and, probably more importantly, domestic cats. 

Two years ago, SFGate reported that the quail had last been seen in Golden Gate Park in 2017 and was, by 2020, locally extinct. If cats (along with hawks, rats, skunks, and raccoons) truly were the bane of quail, then coyotes might give a boost to efforts to re-introduce quail in the Presidio. As a report on quail research from the Presidio Trust said, "Looking at urban parks across the state, researchers found that parks with coyotes had a 73% higher likelihood of being occupied by quail than similar parks without coyotes."

As far as I can tell, no quail have been reintroduced yet. Maybe now that the big Tunnel Tops project has finally been completed, attention can be turned toward doing so. I hope that someday soon I will once again be able to see and hear California quail in the city, and maybe even, once again, in Golden Gate Park.

What got me thinking about all this was a chance photo picked up yesterday by the trail camera I keep in the back yard:

Yard Quail

The cam was triggered while I was setting it up and happened to be pointing at a metal quail sculpture  (bought at Micano in Reno) that's mounted in the yard.

* * *

Wonder Pools

Little Moonglow
(Click photos to view larger.)

Although I did see footprints in the sand when I got down to the beach, I appeared to be the first tidepooler of the morning at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve on Sunday (not counting the great blue heron and flock of sea gulls). After descending the stairs at Seal Cove (the main entrance was still closed) I headed up the beach and soon spotted movement in one of the pools, some kind of crab. 

I wrestled my Nikon out of a canvas Domke shoulder bag, trying not to dump the Panasonic FZ-80 in the process. So much for the Domke, which turns out not to be a very good bag for this kind of work. Along with the FZ-80 for grab shots, I had brought my D800E with a 105/Micro and a small SB-400 flash attached to an SC-29 coiled remote cord. I turned it all on and was promptly greeted by a "card error" flashing in the display. 

In the minute or so that it took to sort that out and get the D800 working, the crab had gone to ground, hiding probably in plain sight, but so well-camouflaged that I needed my special x-ray vision to find it again. Even when I was right above it, I found it virtually impossible to make a photograph of the crab, a kelp crab, that would look like anything other than random colors and shapes. Even when it moved out of its hidey-hole of seaweed its camo held up quite well.

I moved on from the kelp crab to a lovely little orange moonglow anemone about the size of a half-dollar, then to another one nearby. By the time I reached the second one, a hermit crab had photobombed it. The crab was in no rush to vacate the premises, so I gently flicked it out of the way. When I finally looked up  from my tidepooling I was surprised to see that several people had joined me on the reef. By the time I left, there were probably three-dozen or so people out there. It was nice to have low tide striking at such a reasonable hour, and on a weekend to boot.

The sun made a very brief appearance, dazzling us with brighter colors and a more cheerful atmosphere, but Karl the Fog soon reasserted himself over his briny domain.

As I skimmed across the reef peering into pools I stopped several times to just take in the beauty of them, the wonder of the everyday aliens that share this incredible planet with us. I asked a couple of docents if they'd seen any nudibranchs, and they pointed me back down the reef toward a guy in a distinctively bright orange jacket. 

I asked around when I reached him, but no one had a bead on any 'branchs at the moment. As I mosied back toward the beach I spotted a different bright orange creature that I took to be a worm or some kind of new 'branch, but a boy about 10 or 11 years old took one look at the tiny inch-long thing from maybe 10-15 feet away and said it was probably a sea cucumber. Oh, to have laser eyes like that again. I never would have guessed that sea cukes could be so small, and I looked it up when I got home. The kid was absolutely correct.

Hermit Crab Photobombing Moonglow Anemone

Seal Cove

GBH Looking for Morsels

Camouflaged Crab

Crusted Kelp Crab Out in the Open

Inflorescence of Coralline Algae

Best Buds (Sea Star and Anemone)

Coralline Algae with Folded-up Anemones

Big Daddy on a Stalk

Barnacle Bill (and Ted and Hillary)

Sea Shell Collector

Enjoying Our Thirty Seconds of Sunshine

Li'l Cuke

Orange Sea Cucumber (Cucumaria miniata)

* * *

Bumps on a Log

 

California Quail

The Mt. Tam Cam has been doing log duty the last few weeks, but now that the creeks are drying up I've moved the cam to a pool where I hope to catch various animals coming down for a drink. One of the animals that showed up a lot last year was a screech owl, and the owl made a recent appearance here on the log. I have yet to catch a daytime photo of it.

Although the cam was hidden pretty well in a hollow of this tree, I hadn't counted on one of the resident foxes managing to knock it askew. It was a good thing I'd secured the camera to a rock, or it might have tumbled to the ground. You can see in the frame below where the owl shows up that the cam has been jostled to the right.

In addition to seeing the various animals that stop by, it's kind of interesting to see the difference in the quality of light on the mossy log and surrounding forest.

A long time ago, probably in the '90s, I found a strange animal on a log that spanned Redwood Creek. It was just lying there half-way across the log, dead. I took it to Muir Woods to see if a ranger could tell me what it was, and it turned out to be a weasel. I'd never seen one before and had no idea they were so small. I think of that encounter whenever I set up the trail cam on this log, but no weasel has ever been caught on it, which leads me to suspect that they prefer being farther down the mountain.

Western Fence Lizard

Gray Fox

Gray Squirrel

Sonoma Chipmunk & Possible Newt

Hermit Thrush

Screech Owl

Fox Play

* * *

Sierra Impressions

 

Creek Near the Bottom of Blue Canyon
(Click images to view larger.)

I reached the trailhead to Blue Canyon Lake near Sonora Pass at about 8:45 a.m., after making a little detour on the way up. I briefly lived in Sonora back in the late '80s, before the Hwy. 108 bypass went in, so I took a quick side-trip to check out the old route along Mono Way, hoping to grab a bite to eat at one of the fast-food joints I remembered. 

Well, wow. The Wendy's wasn't there at all, and the Burger King was boarded up like the remnant of an old ghost town. I didn't linger to sort out my memories of what else had changed; the East Sonora Bypass opened in 2013, yet this was the first time I'd ever been curious enough to check out the old route. (I had also noted that the Jamestown Frosty was still there, although it looked, upon brief glance as I drove by, surprisingly decrepit, perhaps a casualty of the pandemic.) Farther up the highway, among mountainsides quilled with the charred remains of a fire-ravaged forest, the Dardanelle Resort was at least partially open again. Talk about resilience: the Donnell Fire (a campfire that turned into a 36,000-acre, $30 million, conflagration) wiped it out in 2018, and then a microscopic virus practically shut down the whole planet for a couple of years, but folks are bringing Dardanelle back to life.

I was also surprised by the changes I noticed as I stepped into the wilderness at the base of Blue Canyon Lake. Although spring has arrived, it's still a long way from the peak I experienced when I was last there in mid-August 2017. I encountered a fair amount of snow and ice on the lake back then, but none on this trip. The red-colored green algae (Chlamydomonas nivalis), so much in evidence on snow patches back then, had yet to become visible this season. As that blog post reminded me, I also passed through Yosemite back then, whereas this time I had to pass it up because reservations are required, even to just drive through, between 6 a.m. and 4 p.m.

I spent about three-and-a-half hours hiking up to Blue Canyon Lake and back, doing all my photography on the way up. I didn't plan it that way, but it's nice to take little photo breaks on the way up to the 10,056' elevation lake, especially if your lungs are accustomed to life at sea level. The slower travel, the newness of the landscape, the better light and lighter wind, all conspire to favor doing photography on the way up, leaving you to just take in the views and enjoy the relatively easy hike back down. 

Although this rocky High Sierra trail in the Emigrant Wilderness is a long way from Mt. Tam in several respects, the distance suddenly closed when I caught the familiar song of mountain bluebirds, which sound much like our western bluebirds here on the coast. I never actually saw the birds, and about the only animal I did see along the trail was grasshoppers. I had to wonder how in the world those little critters survive the winter, and according to Bug Guide, they "apparently overwinter as eggs." I did see several marmots sunning themselves on boulders near the trailhead parking area, but not so much as a chipmunk along the trail. I once photographed a mule deer near a fiddleneck meadow high up the trail, but that was in September 1992, and I haven't encountered a scene like that in the thirty years since.

Another solo hiker reached the lake just as I was heading back down, and I ran into a group of three adults and two small children resting on the way up. They had not reached the slightly tricky creek-crossing and rock-scrambles yet, and one of the adults, a very jovial fellow, was carrying a long fishing rod despite the lake at the top of the trail being fishless. High Sierra lakes do not naturally have fish, so those that do have been stocked by the California Department of Fish & Wildlife, and Blue Canyon Lake does not get stocked.

Flush of Trailside Lupines

Scarlet Gilia and Mule Ears

Pale Columbine Flowers

Waterfalls Below Blue Canyon Lake

Wallflowers in the Rubble
(with view of Sonora Peak)

Weathered Pine Wood

Alpine Fleabane in the Lake Basin

Sierra Beardtongue Licks the Rocks to Find a Toehold

Leavitt Meadow
(on the east side of Sonora Pass)

Mono Lake Overlook on I-395

Hiking up Blue Canyon was a great way to break up the long drive to my farthest destination of Onion Valley, in the Eastern Sierra above the town of Independence. The only other time I've been there was when my wife and I spent a night in mid-July of 2010. We were the only campers there, and my wife found it kind of bleak. I figured on this trip that I could easily snag a campsite and hike up to Kearsarge Pass the next day. 

Nope! Not only were the wildflowers different on the way up the mountain (not as prodigious, that is), but I didn't even recognize the place when I finally arrived. There were cars galore parked near the trailhead, and the campground was fully reserved (and cost $29/night!). It was about 5 p.m., so I decided to just hike up to the first lake, about one-and-a-half miles up the well-graded trail. It was much easier to keep a steady pace up those switchbacks fit for horse travel than it was to hike the scree of Blue Canyon. The forest and surrounding mountains were beautiful, especially University Peak (13,589' elev.) which looks a little bit like the east face of Mt. Whitney.

I reached Little Pothole Lake as the sun was about to dip behind the western peaks, so I took a few pictures and gave a little blood (to swarming mosquitoes, that is), then headed back down to my car. A few clouds made for a nice sunset over the Eastern Sierra escarpment, and I pulled off the highway to snap a few frames on my way to visit the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest.

Little Pothole Lake & Sierra Peaks

Kearsarge Pass Trail

View from Onion Valley

Sunset Silhouette

It was fully dark when I reached Grandview Campground. I drove to a favorite and familiar campsite, but it was already taken, so I had to poke around in the dark to find something suitable. Thankfully this campground is still wild, still first-come, first-served, and there is no camp host like at Onion Valley. After making a couple of wrong guesses at campsites that were, in fact, occupied, I finally found a little cove of my own and set up my tent by the blazing light of my headlamp (whose batteries I had recharged before leaving home).

Although the moon was waxing to about half-full, the stars were great, and the arc of the Milky Way traversed the night sky. It was directly above me the first time I woke up and looked, then quite a bit lower the next time. I didn't look at my watch either time, and I quickly dismissed any thought of trying to photograph it. I believe you can use Photographer's Ephemeris to plan Milky Way shots, but not on the free version I have. Once you have your plan, all you have to do is roust yourself out of your sleeping bag at the appointed wee hour.

I was the first to arrive at the Visitors Center parking lot to begin the four-mile loop around the Methuselah Trail. I decided to hike it earth-wise, which is counter to the posted signs. I didn't have a brochure for the sixteen or so trail markers anyway, and the part of the forest I was most interested in photographing is at the end of the counter-clockwise route. I didn't note the time I began the hike, but it was probably around 7:15 a.m., and by about 8:30 the light had gotten too harsh for my taste. The Visitors Center, which opens at 10, was still closed by the time I'd completed the loop. I hadn't noticed  the sign when I arrived, but they've introduced a new $3 day-use fee.

Bristlecone Pines on the Methuselah Trail

Bristlecone Pine Forest

Small Living Branch on Ancient Bristlecone Pine

Bristlecone Pine with Column of Dolomite

Earth Hugging Plants
(It looks like moss, but it produces small yellow daisy-like flowers.)

Cliffhanger

Bristlecone Pines Trying to Look Scary

Bristlecone Dancer

Purple Sage
(without riders)

About half-way through the Methuselah Trail, I started to feel a little like old Methuselah myself. I'd been proud of my high-elevation hiking stamina so far, but rather suddenly my legs began to feel very tired. I needed a rest day, so I descended back to the town of Big Pine and went up the other side, up Glacier Lodge Road (which starts out as Crocker Avenue off Main Street). I'd never been up there before, and it was gorgeous, but again my lack of planning wasn't panning out, as the area's campgrounds appeared to be full. There was only one car parked at the no-shade trailhead which was situated below some daunting mountains. I'd hoped to hike up toward First Lake at just under 10,000 feet, but I didn't think my legs were up to the job, so I'll have to check that out on my next visit. Maybe go up with my wife and rent a cabin at the lodge ($185/night) to do it in style and comfort.

Sonora Pass Vista Point
(looking northwest)

Same Sonora Pass Vista Point
(looking southeast)

Fire Scarred Landscape Along Highway 108
(from bridge over the Middle Fork Stanislaus River east of Dardanelle)

It's too bad it's all such a long drive away. I'd love to go back soon, and I know Pam would dig it and want to do some painting (she's away at an art retreat now). Gas was expensive of course, but not by San Francisco standards. Bishop had the cheapest gas, and was the only place you could score a gallon for less than six bucks. Lee Vining and Bridgeport had the highest prices (as always), and the only prices higher than San Francisco's. Both towns' gas stations clocked in well north of seven bucks. I cringed as I watched a huge RV start to pull into the gas station in Lee Vining, only to feel relief when he realized his mistake and continued to the RV park entrance next door. I was able to fill up in Bishop and get all the way home (via Sonora Pass) with about a third of a tank remaining in my Mazda 3. The only bummer is my bum, which did not like being in that seat for so long (anything more than about four hours gets tough). And speaking of cars, in the old days if a vehicle blew past me on the freeway at 90-100 mph it was the CHP; nowadays it's just about anybody (I was traversing the valley at around 8-10 p.m.).

* * *