Earth Day

 

California Gold Field

This afternoon I heard President Biden on a radio news program use the phrase, "Come hell or high water." Also in the news recently: extreme heat and flooded cities. It appears that hell and high water are here already.

Like me, a lot of people (for a Monday) headed up to Mt. Tamalpais to celebrate Earth Day with a beautiful spring hike. I arrived at opening time, 7 a.m., and hardly saw another soul for more than an hour. The only exception was a bicyclist who stopped to snap a photo of the ocean and rolling green hills of Bolinas Ridge. 

I hiked up the Lagunitas-Rock Spring Road to a serpentine outcrop to look for sickle-leaved onions and was pleasantly delayed by the temptation of Douglas iris flowers. I was early for the onions, which were putting up enclosed buds for the most part, so I observed all the insects necataring among the manzaitas for a while, then headed back to the serpentine outcrop near Rock Spring which I recently visited on a bike ride. 

While trying to protect my bare knees from sharp pebbles, I was hunkered down over a sprig of phacelia when a curiously high number of cars drove by. Later on I drove out to the redwoods near the intersection of West Ridgecrest and Fairfax-Bolinas Road to look for Clintonia andrewsiana. All the parking spots were taken: I'd found the destination of that train of cars.

Morning sun on the hills, with a hazy layer of fog over the Pacific.

Iris flower with still-sleeping insect.

A lighter-colored batch.

One of the very few sickle-leaved onions I found blooming in the serpentine.

Nectar of the gods... and the drone flies...

...and the bumblebees...

...and crazy-looking flies.

Damsel at Rest

Phacelia divaricata

Cream Cups (Platystemon californicus)

This was a different patch of goldfields.

Focus-stacked version to capture the foreground goldfield flowers.

Like the sickle-leaved onions, it was a little early for the Clintonia at my go-to spot under some redwoods on Bolinas Ridge, but a few of the rosy flowers had opened up atop their tall, slender stems.

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Bay Trail Ride

 

Low tide at the tip of the Heron's Head "beak".

I wish there was a more bike-friendly route to reach the starting point at Heron's Head Park, but the route I tried today wasn't too bad. Drop down to Golden Gate Park and onto the Panhandle; follow The Wiggle to Duboce Park and cross Duboce Ave. to Sanchez; hang a left off Sanchez to begin the long stretch down 17th Street past the Hwy. 101 underpass; zig-zag with Mississippi, Mariposa, Indiana, and 23rd to Illinois which takes you to Cargo Way, at the end of which sits the park. 

I missed one of my turns, but it doesn't really matter. You can always sort it out and even cut through streets that are dead ends for cars. On one such shortcut this morning I passed an official looking sign that read, "Hells Angels Parking Only." In an "autumn ramble" story by Carl Nolte in the San Francisco Chronicle, he wrote, "Moving from Minnesota Street to Tennessee is another surprise. Tennessee dead-ends into a blocked-off area called Angel Alley, where the San Francisco Hells Angels have their clubhouse."

Heron's Head was pretty quiet, with just a few birds probing the mudflats, a small school group scouting along the shoreline, a couple of fishermen having no luck, and a handful of folks just out for a walk on this beautiful day. From Heron's Head I rode along the bay front to Fort Point, then headed home via the Presidio, the Richmond District, and Golden Gate Park.

The water near shore was clear and inviting, with rock weed (or bladderwrack, if you prefer) swaying with the rhythm of pulsing water.

The Canada geese were probably the most vocal birds, with the possible exception of a very melodious red-winged blackbird. I was interested to see this one hanging out on the edge of the Pier 96 roof. (Pier 96 is the gray building beyond the fisherman in the picture at the top of this post.)

A few spring wildflowers attracted insects to make the park a little more lively.

I'm pretty sure the whimbrel has caught a small clam that it pulled from the mud after struggling with it for a minute or so.

Some of the stoutness of its beak might be due to caked-on mud.

I'm guessing this cute little guy foraging in the algae is a rock sandpiper.

This is another whimbrel hanging out on the side of the heron's head opposite the mudflats. A school group was headed its way, so I kept my camera on it to wait for...

...the inevitable escape.

Goat Junction, near the Bay Natives Nursery.

Field bordered with imprisoned flowers in redevelopment area around 20th Street.

Superbloom at 20th Street.

More superbloom....

This is just down the street from the posh RH San Francisco.

Red, White & Blue

After the red-white-and-blue, we have the green building, a Mission Rock apartment complex literally named The Verde (rhymes with merde?), with a foreground of blooming redbud trees. This building, along with the adjacent park alongside McCovey Cove, wasn't built yet the last time I biked through here. The white structure next door houses (or soon will) Visa's global headquarters. 

Palm tree vs. the urban jungle.

Mustard and radish along the bay, with the Marin Headlands and Mt. Tamalpais in the distance.

Wild radish superbloom above Fort Mason.

This striped shore crab ensconsed in a bed of mussels and splashing surf at Fort Point was the only crustacean I saw all day.

I hoped the paddle-boarder would catch a wave closer to shore so he'd line up under the bridge better, but low tide probably made it too hazardous.

* * *

Street Flowers

 

Hummingbird Sage (Salvia spathacea)

I first encountered hummingbird sage in Santa Barbara. As a wildflower, its natural range does not include the Bay Area. However, it's also a popular horticultural plant that happens to do pretty well in people's gardens here. The plant I photographed here appears to have escaped the confines of its nearby garden, but I suspect the gardener (a neighbor) actually seeded the soil beneath a couple of street trees. 

I have yet to catch a hummingbird feeding on them as I walk by, but it seems like just the kind of thing they would like.

Note the resinous sepals and bracts. This can be a very sticky plant to handle.

Street Garden

Stairway Garden

Garden Snail

I wondered what explains the dotted trail and found some serious (and not-so-serious) guesses here at New Scientist.

The scientific name was Helix aspersa when I was in a first-year zoology class decades ago. We were taught that Latin names are used because Latin is a "dead language." Word meanings don't change the way they do in living languages. However, I do think it's kind of funny that the common name for garden snails remains the same after all these years, while the scientific name now is Cornu aspersum. Taxonomy never sleeps.

* * *

Golden Days

 

California Poppy

I've been thinking about these poppies (Eschscholzia californica) for a few days. They're growing in a yard across the street, in front of an unoccupied house that has been undergoing a lot of refurbishment since the nice old lady who lived there moved in with her family. Even with no one living there, I felt just a tiny bit guilty when I walked over this afternoon and picked out a pair to photograph in my living room.

Even though I've been thinking about doing it for a few days, I finally had the time and inclination today, maybe enhanced by having watched, just yesterday, an inspiring film about the photographer Paul Strand, called Under the Dark Cloth (on Kanopy). 

These close-ups are all uncropped focus-stacked images, something that would be nearly impossible to shoot in the wild due to subject movement caused by the wind. Click any image to see them larger.

These bleeding hearts (Dicentra formosa) are from our own yard....

* * *

Herons in the Park

 

Prowling Night Heron

I'd thought about going to Mt. Tam this morning before continuing on to Duxbury Reef, but I'm glad I changed my mind before trying to cross the Golden Gate Bridge, which was closed for hours by protesters. Instead I took my usual walk to the beach, followed by a bike ride through the park, where I was surprised to see a black-crowned night heron hunting from the broken-down tree branches on Metson Lake.

Cattails at Metson Lake

Plantain Border at Metson Lake

Cattails and Calla Lilies

The heron eventually moved to a new location without making any stabs at the fish swimming by. 

A Townsend's warbler was hoping to get a crack at bathing in a nearby puddle of water but its hopes were dashed by a robin who got there first.

I only spotted the townie (and a red-breasted nuthatch that was too fast for me) after I stopped to watch a great blue heron hunting for gophers in a meadow bordered with white English daisies and blue forget-me-nots.

Ocean Beach this morning.

Cat Graphic

It's so hard to sleep in the daytime with all that light coming in the window....

Fuzzy Girl

No wonder my phone is full of cat pictures....

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