Travel, pelican flight

This image has been in my head for the last week. I have been wanting to post it but haven't found the time to sit down, locate it on my hard drive, and write a short blurb about it to post  here. In the past week, I've taken a boat trip out to the Farallon Islands, flown to Albuquerque, taken a tram up Sandia Peak while there, and flown back to San Francisco. It's been a busy travel week! Best of all, I've gotten to share this with others close to me.

Brown pelican formation, Salt Point, 2011.

I photo'd these brown pelicans last spring as they patrolled the coastline at Salt Point State Park. They came over a crest where I sat, then swooped down to the water's surface, where they flew into the distance low over the water they way they do, taking advantage of the aerodynamics of flying low on the water. I marvel at how their wingtips miss the water's surface. 

The pelican is an amazing animal, but I'm not the first to recognize it (thanks for the poem, Dad):

THE PLIGHT OF THE PELICAN

Ogden Nash
A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican;
He takes in his beak enough food for a week,
But I'm damned if I see how the helican.

Da bridge, and a few birds.

Yes, I know it's the most photographed object in the City, maybe even in the West Coast, but it does have a tendency to look really cool. Maybe it looks cooler because of its iconic status stemming from the mystique that California, and San Francisco in particular, hold. 

Here the bridge (which turns 75 in 2012) seems to be supported by fog. I took this in late October during the bird walk that I lead monthly. It had been a foggy morning, uneventful for birds, but as 9:00am approached, this was the view. Elegant terns were streaming over the bridge, above the fog, providing by far the most interesting sight we saw all morning. The usual song sparrows, white-crowned sparrows, house finches, and Anna's hummingbirds were present. Amazingly, we didn't even see any yellow-rumped warblers, which have been around in large numbers this fall/winter as usual.

About 20 minutes after this shot was taken, the fog was reduced to a small blob right on the water. And we all went off our separate ways, having shared in the experiences of birdwatching mid-cloud, the drone of fog horns, and the awakening effect of fog burnoff.

GGB, 8:30am in Late October, 2011.

The crew.

Green-winged Teal at Lloyd Lake

Amidst a sea of mallards and mostly gulls, a gem was hidden in the crowd of birds begging the woman with a loaf of bread. The green-winged teal pictured below (the smallest North American duck, per Sibley) attracted the attention of me and my new birding companion for a day (so far), Pete. We had just become acquainted through a mutual friend and spent an afternoon birding in the City.

Green-winged Teal, Lloyd Lake, 11/9/2011.

After garnering inspiration from the film in one of my recent posts, Pete is attempting a Big Year of his own, of sorts. He's going to make an effort to see lots of birds and record them, but he's not competing against anyone. This is my kind of birder. We started in Golden Gate Park, then drove to the Presidio and birded both inland and on the coast there.

We stopped at Lloyd Lake rather on a whim, but found, mixed in with common city birds, the following: mew gull, American wigeon, hooded merganser, wood duck (male and female, both stunningly beautiful), and a few unsightly Muscovy ducks. We even stopped for a moment to admire the plumage of mallards.

NOISSIW

Something about this doesn't look right. But this is how you spell Noissiw Street, is it not?

NOISSIW, San Francisco, 2011.

Battery Cranston Fennel

Battery Cranston Fennel, 2011.

17 batteries along the coast at the Presidio once held enormous guns that were capable of firing shells to the sea and air to defend our West coastline. Today, only one battery still has its gun (open today and each first Sunday of the month to the public for demonstrations), and what remains are the concrete formations that once held them. This, I think, is Battery Cranston. To take this photo, I was standing about where the gentleman with his arms crossed behind his back is standing in the photo here. 

Although these batteries were never used in unfriendly fire, they sadly did not prevent the Enemy from infiltrating. Exotic plants, such as the fennel growing here, as if right at home in a display, now exist in many places in the Presidio. We are working to keep them confined to areas where they won't impact the biodiversity of our restored and remnant natural areas.

America, the Beautiful

All of America, 2011

This is from the side of a camper that often parks near my house.  From the era of the epic road trip, I'm guessing this vehicle has seen it all. 

I like the way the decals are peeling, state-by-state. The Great Lakes got their own color. And the "eautiful" in Beautiful is kind of falling off. Or maybe the B is just cocked back.