Trail Cams

 

Warm-Coated Coyote

The main event on the trail cams for the last two weeks was a bobcat passing through, and it only did so once in all that time. Although gray fox have been common in other locations, I rarely capture them here, and they always seem to pass through at night.

I felt a slight sense of dread as I hiked up the hill toward the trail cams and saw that someone had passed through the vicinity. The Aerobie I found back in February and placed on a bay laurel branch had been taken. Did they also take my cams? Thankfully, no. I was glad to see that both of the cams were still in place. The likely duo did turn up on one of the video clips (they did not notice the cam), and I hope they enjoy the flying ring. I had a feeling someone would spot its day-glow orange dangling in a tree someday.

I like that the GardePro cam has decent resolution in daytime shots (all the pix in this post are frame captures from 15-second video recordings). The night shots are not so great. I also wish the GardePro rendered green foliage as well as the Foxelli, but my main wishlist item would be a faster trigger speed. Animals moving across the frame are often captured just before they exit the frame altogether. And this is despite the cam's side-sensors which are supposed to make the trigger faster. I also miss having the info strip, and I might turn that back on despite the fact that it overlays part of the image.

The cams show that the little creek was still running well as recently as April 9, but it has been petering out since then. When I arrived on 4/13 it was quite choked with algae, although water was still moving through it. I suspect it will have dried up in another couple of weeks, but only the band-tailed pigeons seem to use it as a drinking source. The other animals usually just step over it, although once in a while they will take a quick drink. A red-tailed hawk showed up to drink a couple of times one day.

Band-Tailed Pigeons

Black-Tailed Jackrabbit

Bobcat in the Night

Gray Fox

Red-Tailed Hawk Takes Off After Drinking in Stream

Coyote
(composite of two frame captures from video)

The Red-Tail's Return

Wild Turkey

Recent Trail Cam Video Clips

(with limping coyote mentioned in previous post at the end)

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Clearing the Cobwebs

 

Bolinas Ridge view with sprinkle of fiddleneck and young cobwebby thistle.

It's been a while since I last had such a restless night that I woke up to a world of blah. I rolled out of bed feeling so unrefreshed that I skipped my morning exercises and cut straight to the oatmeal and coffee, then booted up the computer to browse the usual news outlets, only to realize I couldn't have cared less about any of it. On the bright side, it allowed me to roll out of the house and into a beautiful morning about an hour earlier than I otherwise would have.

The out-of-sorts funkiness followed me during the beginning of my ride up to Mt. Tam, but it was easy enough to brush it off. I recently downloaded The Iliad from the library and took Homer's cue of blaming the gods for any mischief I encountered. Beneath the little sprinkles of mischief, the day itself was superb: sunny and cool, with very little wind.

As I was about to turn off Arguello Boulevard into the Presidio I passed a memorial for Ethan Boyes, the competitive cyclist who was killed by an out-of-control motorist on April 4. My wife told me she read a Nextdoor post by someone who said they were an eye-witness, and that the vehicle crossed into the oncoming lane and ran head-on into Boyes. I stopped to photograph the memorial as I passed it again on my way home and let the horror of it sink in. Not only did the car cross the center line, it completely crossed the opposite lane and gouged tire tracks into the embankment on the far side of the bike path. [UPDATE 9/14/23 here.] [UPDATE 3/18/24 here: 81-year-old DUI driver pleads guilty to misdemeanors; sentencing scheduled for July 15.]

That grim and poignant reminder of what's at stake when we share the road with each other stayed with me as I continued my ride, but I also didn't ignore all the uplifting reminders of the world that I also encountered, like a great blue heron perched on a rooftop, or a large ship sailing through a sunlit tableau of calm bay waters, rolling green hills, and peaceful shoreline, with a little irony thrown in (it was an oil and chemical tanker with "Protect the Environment" emblazoned in green below the bridge, in slightly smaller type than the red "No Smoking" reminder). Up on Bolinas Ridge I spotted a coyote with a limp who was hunting as best he could, his motley fur coat halfway between winter and summer. 

This is prime time to see spring patches of purple sky lupine on the steep green hillsides, but I didn't see a single good patch of them on Thursday. Earlier in the week David Muir on ABC News aired a feature on wildflowers that included Mt. Tamalpais, but they recorded the segment before they had much to show. I'll hold out hope there's more to come since I've seen impressive blooms in the past as late as April 30. Meanwhile, patches of fragrant chert-loving lupines were just coming into bloom along West Ridgecrest Road, and a low-growing fiddleneck created a few small patches of golden yellow. Calpyso orchids are still going strong.

Urban Heron

The Overseas Boston oil/chemical tanker steams out of San Francisco Bay

An Injured Coyote on the Hunt

Coyote and Poison Oak

Chert-Loving Lupine

A young buck feeding his growing antlers.

It's a superbloom! :)

Smoke on Panoramic Highway

Crews were doing controlled burns of brush piles above Muir Woods.

Ethan Boyes Memorial

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Where the Buffalo Roam

 

I ride past Golden Gate Park's Bison Paddock pretty much every day and have been waiting a long time -- seemingly all winter -- to be able to see and photograph these impressively huge animals out in the same meadow that they and their ancestors have been roaming and browsing in for more than a hundred years. 

Groundskeepers recently bulldozed part of the meadow, perhaps to improve the forage, and the scars are already filling in with grass. It's a good time to see the bison out and about.

As I stood at the fence with the bison just a few feet away I was struck by just how huge these impressive animals really are. I could only imagine what it must have been like to see vast herds of them on the open plains. It was interesting to see cape buffalo up close at the San Diego Safari Park last week, but seeing these American bison felt more special, more deeply touching. They impart a visceral appreciation of our link to the deep history of  the people and animals who call this land home.

* * *

San Diego Snaps

 

The Research Vessel Sally Ride Enters San Diego Bay

Although the main part of our quest was to see a platypus at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, I knew as soon as we entered the dark, cave-like enclosure of those cute little egg-laying mammals that my camera would be useless. We got there early and had the cave to ourselves, but after waiting hopefully for more than half an hour we had to leave to catch our safari truck without so much as a glimpse of a platypus. 

Fortunately, one of the critters was out and about when we returned to the enclosure, and we blissfully hogged the tiny viewing area as long as we could, even seeing the platypus catch and devour a crayfish (or yabby, as they call 'em Down Under) before being ushered out. The third time we showed up we had to wait in line to get in, but we did get to see the second of the two platypuses in a different part of the enclosure, so it was worth the wait.

Another highlight at the zoo was seeing California condors up close. I felt a special kinship with one of the birds that had come to the zoo as an egg in 1982, the same year I moved to the Golden State.

After enjoying the platypus and condors we spent a couple of days closer to the city. We stayed at a hotel near the Old Town San Diego State Historic Park and visited Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve and Cabrillo National Monument (where we were a little early for the tidepools, but it was very windy by then anyway). 

Giraffes and Wildflowers

Hooded Oriole in Cactus Garden

California Condor

Tiger Pad

Torrey Pines Beach

Lifeguard Station #5
(what we saw)

Lifeguard Station #5
(what this person saw)

Torrey Pines Reserve
(Thanks to the the philanthropy of Ellen Browning Scripps, this high spot along the shoreline didn't get turned into a housing development.)

* * *

Carrizo Plain

 

Wildflower Mosaic

Just wanted to share some Panasonic FZ80 shots made last Tuesday (4/4/23) as we drove through Carrizo Plain National Monument on our way to San Diego to see the only live platypuses in the United States (and thereby scratch off one of my wife's longtime bucket-list items). 

We were surprised right off the bat by how full of water Soda Lake was. So many times I've seen it much more soda than lake (see 2013). This time it was too full for even a 180-degree panorama. 

I love fiddleneck as much as anyone, but I was a little perplexed by how much of the plain had been taken over by it. I'd never seen it before in such monocultural abundance. 

Although I only had time to use the point-and-shoot on this trip, I'm giving serious thought to heading back down there with my DSLR. Judging by the look of things we saw during our drive home today, there's plenty of time left to catch great color all over the place.

[UPDATE] If you click on the image below titled "Carrizo Plain and Temblor Range" to see it full-sized, you'll note a purple stripe in the distance. I believe that stripe is part of the huge purple splotch of color that NASA satellites captured on April 6.]

Along the Soda Lake Overlook Trail

View Over Soda Lake

Carrizo Plain and Temblor Range

Carrizo Plain and Caliente Range

South End of Soda Lake Road

Cloud and Paint Spill

View Toward Elkhorn Road From CA-166

Orange Poppies, Orange Jeep: The Grapevine This Morning

* * *

Pt. Reyes in April, Pt. 2

 

Drake's Beach Sunrise

Iris Sunrise, Bluffs at Drake's Beach

One Elk

Two Elk

Three Elk

Five Elk

Wooly Sunflower

San Francisco Owl's Clover

Cotton-Batting Plant

Dead Cow Removal

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