Foam

An astounding thing to watch is foam, sea foam, as it spreads, the only visible evidence that this cellophane sheet covering the flat sand is in motion. A totally disorganized, yet perfectly arranged array of bubble blobs, never ending.

One allows a wave to flow over his feet, since moving would disturb the opportunity to behold this perfection. And starting the day with wet feet was worth it today, when infinity was found while walking a city beach.

Baker Beach Morning Foam, San Francisco, 2012.

San Francisco Snowy Peaks

The peaks in San Francisco that appear covered in snow in late Fall/early Winter are those of Baccharis pilularis, or coyote brush. The flurries are the wind-blown seeds of this shrub, native to much of California and considered the backbone of many scrub community types. Like other members of the Aster family, Baccharis produces fluffy seed that is transported in the wind. If you are reminded of a dandelion, it's for good reason -- it is in the same plant family. 

I'm told that one of the reasons coyote brush (not coyote bush) has its name is owing to its fluffy seed, which, coating its branches, makes one think that a coyote has brushed against it.

I took this photo while biking to work one cool, late October morning. I stopped along Lincoln Blvd, just north of N. Pershing. I shot it looking east (into the sun, of course).

This is one of the restoration sites where I currently work. It is the site of one of the Presidio's first large-scale habitat restoration projects. Five residential buildings, like those in the background, once stood here and were removed in 1996 to increase the populations of certain plants. The moving .gif below depicts the change from an aerial perspective. 

Now the site supports populations of numerous rare plants, and the spring --> summer flower show is impressive. Last year I photo'd two green hairstreak butterflies copulating here. And I've seen the tracks of coyote here, who brush against the Baccharis.

Baccharis pilularis, North Pershing Dunes, 2012.

1983 - 2012 aerial of North Pershing Dunes - courtesy Google Earth.

Fiber Monday

I can't be the only one who's cleverly thought of this phrase to describe what today's eating habits should be after the Thanksgiving weekend eating binge. I hereby declare that we consider "Fiber Monday" a healthy lifestyle alternative to Cyber Monday.

You may have been expecting a photo of a bowl of oatmeal, beans, grits, or Cream-of-Wheat, but after searching the archives, I'm going with a nature photo.

I took this picture of meadow barley (Hordeum brachyantherum) during a contemplative stroll through a gorgeous meadow on Sweeney Ridge in June a few years ago. I indulged in a catnap shortly after snapping this.

The nodding flower heads are the native meadow barley, and, as least as far as I can tell, the straight ones are those of Italian rye grass, an exotic species known to invade California grasslands. It seems meadow barley has a strong foothold here.

Hordeum brachyantherum, Sweeney Ridge, 2010.

Thanksgiving: let's eat

The holidays are here -- the cycle of overeating has begun that in one month and eight days will result in numerous resolutions to lose weight and improve our health.  Let's go!

I hope that people are eating turkey sandwiches for lunch these days. And still savoring stuffing and puckering with the taste of cranberry. And re-warming that apple pie a lot. Or just eating it cold next to a wedge o' pumpkin pie.

And I hope that others out there, like me, are finding creative uses for egg nog: today alone, I employed it as an enhancement to oatmeal, coffee, and this evening, a cup of chai. Tomorrow I'll repeat the coffee addition, perhaps spiking it a bit.

Piggy Butt, 2011.

Piggy bank face, 2011.

I took these piggy bank portraits at brother Kev's house last year at about this time. I was with family when I took this, so it makes me think of them. Happy Thanksgiving!

Shoreline Highway

California State Route 1 is famous for good reason. I plan to become more familiar with its ins and outs, and especially its ups and downs, starting now. As of last week, I've moved out of San Francisco, and into a small place in Marin. Highway 1 is now my driveway. Turning left out the front door, I can go to San Diego, or turning right, to Olympic National Park. I would love to do either of these trips, especially by bike, someday.  But for now it's my bike commute, and will be the road to exploration of beaches, valleys, mountains, and who knows what else.  

California State Route 1, Marin County, 2009.

 Still without internet service at home, I am using the Mill Valley Public Library's excellent free wifi. I biked here the long way,  opting for a +/- 1000 foot elevation gain, rather than the roughly +/- 300 foot elevation gain. (clicking this link might work - it will take you on a Google Earth 3D tour of the route if you have Google Earth plugin.)

Now my bike sits outside, unlocked, and I'm only a little nervous. Another person's much nicer bike was sitting next to it, also unlocked. This is a world of difference from the Mission, where on the weekend before I left, my "bar bike" was lifted. It was literally lifted -- It had been locked to a tree cage that, when disassembled at about six feet off the ground, allowed the thief to lift the bike over the tree stake.  I'm going to miss that bike.

Plane window gazing

I flew to New York City two years ago to visit my brother, who was living there with his family at the time. It was a great trip. I checked out High Line park for the first time; I reconnected with a friend from my ultimate frisbee playing lifestyle; and I spent quality time with my brother and his family. 

Somewhere over the High Plains, Winter 2010.

This image was shot with of a plane window. Why did I shoot this? Fascination with temperature and elevation; and agriculture. And, obviously, fascination with drainage patterns. 

• Drainage patterns: there are valleys forming, slowly, on top of this mesa. That's cool to think of in itself. The topography here is enhanced by the rising sun.
• Agriculture: note the circles in the upper/left portion of the frame. Anyone who's flown over the western United States has hopefully observed these. These are created from enormous sprinklers that rotate around a central point and are depleting the Ogallala aquifer. Can anyone answer the question of what is done with the corners -- the spaces between the circles -- that don't get irrigated? I'm actually very curious. Someone has done the math that pivoting sprinklers maximize the use of land.
  The limiting factor in the productivity equation is clearly water; I'm assuming most of these unwatered corners are left unused, or planted with an aggressive plant that holds the soil and won't invade the crop areas, or is easily managed with an herbicide that's broadcast via the irrigation system.
• Temperature and elevation: snow can afford to remain only where temperatures remain cool enough. This mesa is right on that threshold, at the time this photo was taken. Maybe the snow fell the night before -- and this is the first daylight the snow has seen...
• And finally, slope effect has allowed some surfaces to remain warm enough to prohibit lasting snow. Since this is in the northern hemisphere, surfaces that face west or south are warmer -- they receive more sunlight throughout any given day of the year. (This photo is not very illustrative of this concept, so I'm putting myself to task to post about this in the future with a better shot).

These are just a few things to think about when gazing out the plane window next time you fly. You've paid for the view -- now take advantage of it! 

Rails to Trails, Berlin Style

I'm so glad that I picked up the book 111 Orte in Berlin die Man Gesehen Haben Muss, ("111 Must-See Places in Berlin").  Earlier this summer, I had arrived in Berlin after a ten-day trip to Russia with family, to visit the old land of East Prussia. I was saturated with new information, geography, history, language, and personalities. It had been a full 10 days prior, and 10 days prior to that as well -- that I had spent with family in Switzerland and Germany.

All in all, it was a trip of a lifetime. I've only begun to write about it, but owe it to myself to write down the details before they slip away. Thank goodness photos are here to help with that, but they only help extend the memory of what they capture.

So what does one do with only four days in Berlin? It's a great problem to have: being in a foreign place with not enough time to absorb the amazing history of it. It's helpful to have a limiting factor or two. My chief limiting factors were: I didn't want to spend a ton of money,  and I had already been to a few locations on a prior visit in 2001. I was also motivated to use the train and bus system as much as possible, since I'd bought a 72-hour unlimited use pass. Plus, I always feel more authentically immersed, and less like a tourist, on local public transit.

I also traveled alone, so if I ended up lost or going somewhere not-so-worthwhile, I only had myself to disappoint, and a only myself to blame; that allowed me more freedom of choice.

As I stood in the Berlin bookstore on my first day, trying to plan the forthcoming days, rather than going with a Lonely Planet, or Frommer's, or the like, which are all different yet exactly the same, I selected the book I mentioned above, written only in German by a local.

Der Naturpark Südgelände is reachable by a combination of a few S-Bahn and U-Bahn (surface and underground) subway trains.I was a bit concerned that when I got off the train, I would be on my own finding the park -- but the sign below was a welcome sight, and got me there before I even had to consult a map. (Notice the large "Natur-Park" sign.)

Clear Signage at Haltestelle Priesterweg, August 2012.

Naturpark Südgelände is an old rail yard that has been allowed to become overgrown with vegetation. Trails have been made through parts of it, but other parts are strictly maintained as sanctuaries. I can't do it enough justice in today's post -- I have yet to translate the many interpretive signs that I shot photos of -- but I know that Naturpark Südgelände hosts many imperiled species in an otherwise urban/industrial area. And I know that the City of Berlin probably had other options rather than making it a park. 

So today Naturpark Südgelände stands to show nature's ability to overcome human constraint. This was one of three striking examples of this phenomenon that I observed on my Euro journey. Because of politics, wars, and border changes, examples of this are all over Europe. The other two I became intimately familiar with (Wiepenheide and Rauschen) are still in my memory bank.

Der Naturpark Südgelände, August 2012.

Desolation Wilderness V - Geology Rocks!

This is a few-months' jump back in time now, a continuation in posts from the July 4 Desolation Wilderness trip. I had begun to write this note, and saved the draft, before I left for Europe in late July; but life has been whirling since then. I intend to get around to publish something about the trip, but for now some images are publicly shared, with captions, on my Picasa page, and that's it.

The split boulder below is just cool, plain and simple. I wonder whether the angle of these cracks would tell us something about the molecular structure of granite. They certainly tell us a few things about water. At least I think so -- I assume this boulder cracked as a result of freeze/thaw expansion/contraction of water in its fissures. 

Then again, maybe it just fell from above and shattered in place. That would have been a sight to behold.

Interestingly broken boulder, Desolation Wilderness, 2012.

Below is a shot of the reflection of some glacial polish on a slab of granite on the south shore of Middle Velma Lake. Imagine: a slab of ice atop this surface, thick enough to weigh down the sediment between the two, enough to grind it smooth as it slid, ever so slowly.

Growing up in Wisconsin, I was schooled about glaciation and its visible relics on the earth's surface today. We skied and hiked through them: drumlins, eskers, kettles, kames, and moraines are abundant there. But it wasn't until studying physical geography and geomorphology in Colorado that I learned of glacial polish. It's all deeply fascinating and awe-inspiring, especially once you set foot on a landscape where these relics exist.

Glacial polish on granite, Middle Velma Lake, Desolation Wilderness, 2012.

Falling Forward

I love the concept of walking as falling forward. I was first turned on to the concept by Milwaukee musician Willy Porter, who released an album with that title in '99.  Think about it. Stand up straight. let yourself lean forward until you are losing your balance, falling. Your reaction: a foot steps forward, breaking the fall. Move your other foot next to the first one. Repeat. You are walking.

I am a bit of a non-walking stickler. Unless I'm hiking on a trail with plants and birds to entertain me, I generally can't stand it. I use a bike to get almost everywhere in the city, and when I can't, I use a bus. If it's more than a few blocks and no bus is going my way, I will jog in whatever non-jogging clothes and shoes I'm wearing, just to get to Point B a little sooner. (This is ridiculous.)

But sometimes, when my patience is strong, I do walk, and when I do, I tend to notice stuff. And that's a good thing. It's much safer for an observant fellow to walk rather than bike. The risk of being involved in a damage-inflicting collision while blindly walking is not too great.

I recently read an inspiring post on Outside magazine's blog about a recent art-inspired environmental movement in China.  It seemed like an effective way to convey to the masses the simple beauty of walking, and the actual environmental benefit of walking. Hopefully people take that message home and change their decision process before doing something less "green" than walking.

Pedestrian-inspired tile art, NYC Subway, 2011.

Gull Footprints on the Baltic, Svetlogorsk, August 2012.

Desolation Wilderness IV - flora/ponderosa pine

My favorite conifer in the US, so far the world, is the ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa). They can become huge, living 300-600 years. They grow in elevations that I tend to enjoy most -- since I first learned of them in Colorado, I always thought of their home range as around 7,000 feet. But sources say it grows from sea level to about 9,000 feet.

Above all else, they invite a passerby to sniff them. When one pokes his nose into a furrow of the bark, he is rewarded with the smell of butterscotch (some say vanilla). 

Unable to capture the smell on film, this time, I bring you a photo of the photogenic female cone of the ponderosa. These lined the path in places of Desolation. It's hard to imagine there's a function of the 2-tone color of the inside of the scales on these cones. I wonder if that is just an effect from the materials used for that part of the cone. Or is it a pattern designed to have a certain effect on wildlife? Although I'm not sure, I believe they are wind pollinated -- in other words, they don't rely on birds or insects to move their pollen from male to female tree. So that would exclude any reason for the cone scales to attract the attention of a pollinator.

Ponderosa Cone, Desolation Wilderness, 2012.

Desolation Wilderness III - flora

Wildflowers boomed in early July in Desolation Wilderness this year. I don't know whether this is typical for the area, but figure it probably is. High elevations yield snows into early June, and summer is brief, so it's game on once days lengthen. At just a few weeks past the solstice, the sun is hot, pollinators abound, and every new step yields a new flower.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the ability to look up this plant before leaving, and didn't bring any flower identification tools with me to Europe. And I am typing painfully slowly! So - I think the plant pictured below is a penstemon. This showy flower decorates the rocky hillsides and was very abundant. This one, situated next to an ancient down log, seemed to point both in the direction of the log's spiraling grain and the path we walked upon.

Penstemon and down log, Desolation Wilderness, 2012.

And more ancient wood, this snag still of use to woodpeckers before it topples. I think these holes are the work of pileateds, although I am not sure if they hang out at high elevation. There were definitely hairy woodpeckers around, which also could have been responsible.


Woodpecker work, Desolation Wilderness, 2012.

Desolation Wilderness II - Panorama

I should not give away the name of this lake, our hostess for both nights we backpacked. Especially since a friend recommended this place. I will say that it's a woman's name that previously, I would never have thought to give to a daughter, if I ever have one. But, after this experience, I would reconsider. (OK, it's Middle Velma Lake.)

Middle Velma Panorama, July 2012.

This is a stitch of three photos that overlap about 15%, then were, digitally meshed with each other using Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor). You can tell it's three separate photos by looking at the borders -- seeing the curvature of the lens in each.  My coworker Lew discovered this program and we have used it for our site photos. We do photomonitoring at our restoration sites for a visual depiction of the sites' progression over time.  Taking a picture of the same site, from the exact same perspective over the years can yield staggering results.

This was shot at dusk. I got out the tripod and braved the mosquitoes, with every possible piece of my skin covered as protection against them.  My merino wool biking gloves that I brought in case of cold nights were essential.

 

Desolation Wilderness I - Day and Night

Perhaps each stunningly gorgeous and pristine area such as this should have so foreboding a name as this to keep it so: Desolation Wilderness. The next series of posts will be dedicated to the experience of backpacking in this fantastic place. 

To begin, the contrast of city living to wilderness camping is, well, day and night. What a welcome change. You must bring food, create your own water supply, pack out all of your waste (except that for which you dig a latrine pit), and use just your own legs for locomotion. You must plan diligently, prepare for worse than you expect, and work hard while there. But your payment is beyond generous, almost unfair and seeming undeserved. Every turn of the head will take your breath away if you're not careful. (That is, at this high elevation, if you have any breath left to take.) The silence is at times deafening -- and if you don't know what I mean, please let me try to explain. It is a phenomenon where your mind expects sound, since it nearly always detects it. You are so confounded that you hear nothing that you do, actually, believe that you've lost your hearing. Cover your ears and you will sense little difference.

Day and Night, Desolation Wilderness, July 2012.

And the visual experience, from plants to rocks, sky to water, wood to birds, is very difficult to capture. Tiny fragments captured on film will serve as just enough to remind me to go see and breathe the real thing, again and again.

Jailbirds!

Folk art, crafts...sometimes there's a fine line between "crafts" and "trash". Sometimes a keen eye can tell them apart. Sometimes time passing can be the only test. Usually it's just a matter of opinion: any piece of handmade craftiness could be a treasure to some and junk to another. 

I recently started making t-shirts, so I know this. They don't impress everyone all the time; in fact, I now no longer really care for the one that reads "WWWTF". It had a lukewarm public reception but seemed like a good idea to make. 

Folk art comes about when an entrepreneurial spirit conceives a notion that is unavailable on the public market. This is either because it's so genius that nobody's thought of it yet, or maybe it was invented but not marketed well; maybe the time was wrong for it; maybe it was just a bad idea. Maybe the art/invention is so brilliant and demands such skill that only one person in the world could ever make it. (That is the case with my t-shirts.)

Be your own judge on this piece. It was at a craft sale on the Fourth of July in Steilacoom, a small town near Tacoma. I opted to take its picture rather than buy it, and see if the test of time would lead me to regret this decision. It's been almost a year and I'm not losing any sleep. Don't get me wrong -- I like a lot about it! It's creatively built, makes you chuckle, and it has a function -- just not for me.

Jailbird-house, Steilacoom, 2011.

Slackers

Americanature has been heavy on the nature and light on the Americana lately. It's the season of lawn chairs, parades, BBQs, and county fairs. Let's get back to a little Americana.

 I took this picture of a bar window in Shawano, Wisconsin, with a digital point and shoot camera. I was on a sales trip with my friend Craig. I believe we had just, or were about to, eat lunch across the street at the Chinese restaurant with the red awning. We were going to have lunch with our associate Ted.

I stumbled upon this photo on my hard drive earlier this week. I am not sure why I took it. But if I was anything then like I am now, I had a cynical sense of humor. I believe it was the "For Sale by Owner" sign on a place named Slackers that got me. The effort that they put into selling this bar was 1. Go to Hardware Store. 2. Post sign on window. 3. Wait.

Slackers Bar, Shawano, WI, January 2004.

Has the strategy paid off? Well, that was 2004, and Google Streeview captured it in all its glory in 2009, looking exactly the same (except no sign). I'm not saying it's certain that the ownership didn't change, but what's your guess?

This led me to an impromptu internet research project: Google Streetview captures. I thought it would have been cool if, by chance, the googlemobile had driven by and photo'd me taking this picture. It didn't, but here's a collection of interesting links. 

http://imgur.com/gallery/1h0sc

http://mashable.com/2012/03/02/google-street-view-peeing-suit/#5002120-Hello-Me

(check out the bonus slideshow below this article -- #17 is my fave...

awesome job to be this cameraman:

http://mashable.com/2012/06/12/google-street-view-hiking-trails/

Annular Eclipse

It's been a hot month for celestial events. Just a few hours ago, Venus could be seen passing in between us and the sun, appearing as a tiny black dot on its face. When my friend Eric encouraged me to borrow his viewing device, a thick piece of dark cellophane designed for such things (apparently it allows three minutes of direct sun-gazing), I was impressed. I first saw nothing, but when I heeded his advice to give it a second, a-ha! There it was -- the sun's best Cindy Crawford. Apparently this will not happen again until 2117, so I hope you got to witness it. If not, there are plenty of online pictures for the "armchair astronomer" to check out.

On May 20, San Francisco was buzzing. There was this bobolink in town that you've already heard about. The famous Bay to Breakers run thundered through the city. Preparations were being made for the GGB75 event. And there was to be an annular eclipse that evening.  As I understand it, this is a partial eclipse that blocked all but the "annulus" of the sun, or 85 percent of it.

Annular eclipse, San Francisco, May 20, 2012.

People gathered all over the city, as a strangely dim light enveloped us, to view the eclipse. Many resorted to their own creative methods of seeing it, as illustrated below. The woman has about four pair of sunglasses on, and the gent is projecting the image through his eyepiece onto a small improvised screen for others to see.  I missed seeing an effect that I heard of later, where sun-dapples cast from trees during the eclipse were tiny round projections of the eclipse event.

There will be a total eclipse in North America on August 21, 2117 -- save the date.

Bobolink

It was an exciting time, but I think it may have passed. I was the lucky first to identify the presence of a bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) -- a bird of the eastern US and southern Canada -- in San Francisco last week. I posted it to SFBirds, the city's online birding bulletin board, and a flood of observers came to see it. It felt good to be the inspiration for many people to get out and experience nature. I often read the SFBirds postings but rarely contribute anything notable. This was by far the most unusual bird I've ever reported. 

I got the photo below with a borrowed long lens and my film camera body on a return visit to the site.

Bobolink at Crissy Field, San Francisco, May 20, 2012.

I first saw and posted it Thursday, 5/17.  I was leading a class for volunteers, an introductory birding class. I was only trying to point out the differences in feather iridescence on brown-headed cowbirds versus Brewer's blackbirds, when suddenly... whammo, my heart stopped. What was this bird I recognized from the prairies of Illinois doing...here? Was it really a bobolink? How rare is that here? The group was patient with me and my sort of crazed desire to photograph the bird. I was actually trembling and probably nonsensical for a while.

I got the following picture through our spotting scope with the digital point-and-shoot that I borrowed from Cate, an intern with our program (thanks again, Cate!). I pointed it through our spotting scope (I "digiscoped" it) and snapped a few pictures. If no other birders would have arrived and successfully viewed it, this image would have been the one to prove the bird's presence that day to the world.

Digiscoped Bobolink at Crissy Field, San Francisco, May 17, 2012,

 

I returned Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday with success in relocating it. It was actually easy to find, since three out of four of those times it was in the sights of birders on the scene. Some had binocs, some had spotting scopes, others had expensive camera equipment or all of the above. The other of those days, the birders searching for it were out of luck, but we all joined forces and happened to find it within about 2 minutes. One woman said, "We've been here for an hour, and you just show up and find it!?!" My coworker Coty, who joined me to photograph it, heard my comment, "Well, it is 'my' bird." 

I looked for it again Tuesday, Wednesday, and yesterday (Thu) and failed to find it, each time with other birders, and nobody has posted its presence since Tuesday.  Although another coworker told me his friend saw it Wednesday the 23rd. Perhaps it's left, perhaps it's just undetectable. Even when there, he was often hard to see: he spent its time low in the low-mowed turfgrass, poking  his head up occasionally and seldom flying. 

Based on the above two photos, you might be thinking: "Couldn't you just find the blue flag and then locate the bird?" Uh, nope, there were hundreds of these flags out to demarcate various things.

Bobolink viewers at Crissy Field, May 18, 2012.

Starting last weekend, Crissy Field has seen much activity -- the setup of stages, tents, kiosks, signage, and batteries of port-a-potties -- in anticipation of the Golden Gate Bridge's 75th anniversary coming this weekend. An crowd of 300,000 to 500,000 (or more?) visitors is expected. The lawn is no longer a large contiguous swath, which probably was part of the reason it was so appealing for the bird. It had lots of area to cover, with plenty of distance to view approaching predators.  And it seemed to be munching on Poa and unopened dandelion blossoms, which seemed abundant enough at Crissy to feed the entire North American population of bobolinks.

Many people have asked what it was doing here. I have no idea, but can only speculate that it got knocked off-course over its migration path. This bird is a champion of migration, covering over 10,000 round-trip miles each year to travel between its wintering grounds in central South America (the Pampas of southern Brazil and surrounding parts of Argentina and Paraguay) and Eastern North America. It hopscotches through the western Caribbean, probably flying the 500 miles directly north to Cuba in one leap. It migrates in flocks with a thousand other bobolinks and generally makes landfall in Louisiana or Florida, then continues north along the Atlantic states. Read some interesting anecdotes, including a report of one landing on open ocean, here.

There is a small breeding population of bobolink about 160 miles NE of San Francisco, near a town called Eagleville in Surprise Valley. Was this one of those birds? 

It was enjoyable to have this bird visit. I will be volunteering tomorrow to give people directions for the "GGB75" event, but hopefully I'll be pointing out this still-present, rare SF bird to people, rather than the bridge or the thousand port-a-potties.

Listen to its song (great footage starting at about 1:20 and 3:30), after which the bird is named, then check out this dedication to the bird:

Robert of Lincoln

William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878)

Merrly swinging on brier and weed,

Near to the nest of his little dame,

Over the mountain-side or mead,

Robert of Lincoln is telling his name:

Bob-o’-link, bob-o’-link,

Spink, spank, spink;

Snug and safe is that nest of ours,

Hidden among the summer flowers.

Chee, chee, chee. 

Robert of Lincoln is gayly drest,

Wearing a bright black wedding-coat;

White are his shoulders and white his crest.

Hear him call in his merry note:

Bob-o’-link, bob-o’-link,

Spink, spank, spink;

Look, what a nice new coat is mine,

Sure there was never a bird so fine.

Chee, chee, chee. 

Robert of Lincoln’s Quaker wife,

Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings,

Passing at home a patient life,

Broods in the grass while her husband sings:

Bob-o’-link, bob-o’-link,

Spink, spank, spink;

Brood, kind creature; you need not fear

Thieves and robbers while I am here.

Chee, chee, chee. 

Modest and shy as a nun is she;

One weak chirp is her only note.

Braggart and prince of braggarts is he,

Pouring boasts from his little throat;

Bob-o’-link, bob-o’-link,

Spink, spank, spink;

Never was I afraid of man;

Catch me, cowardly knaves, if you can!

Chee, chee, chee.

Six white eggs on a bed of hay,

Flecked with purple, a pretty sight!

There as the mother sits all day,

Robert is singing with all his might:

Bob-o’-link, bob-o’-link,

Spink, spank, spink;

Nice good wife, that never goes out,

Keeping house while I frolic about.

Chee, chee, chee.

Soon as the little ones chip the shell,

Six wide mouths are open for food;

Robert of Lincoln bestirs him well,

Gathering seeds for the hungry brood.

Bob-o’-link, bob-o’-link,

Spink, spank, spink;

This new life is likely to be

Hard for a gay young fellow like me.

Chee, chee, chee. 

Robert of Lincoln at length is made

Sober with work, and silent with care;

Off is his holiday garment laid,

Half forgotten that merry air:

Bob-o’-link, bob-o’-link,

Spink, spank, spink;

Nobody knows but my mate and I

Where our nest and our nestlings lie.

Chee, chee, chee. 

Summer wanes; the children are grown;

Fun and frolic no more he knows;

Robert of Lincoln’s a humdrum crone;

Off he flies, and we sing as he goes:

Bob-o’-link, bob-o’-link,

Spink, spank, spink;

When you can pipe that merry old strain,

Robert of Lincoln, come back again.

Chee, chee, chee.

Western Tanager

Western tanager in Mountain Lake willows, San Francisco, 2012.

Much has been written about the gorgeous western-US installment of the genus Piranga, the tanagers. I declare this my favorite genus of North American birds.

I found an article that summarizes, more thoroughly than I would have, what I wanted to summarize about the western tanager. I was curious about the Latin name Piranga ludoviciana. What did ludoviciana refer to? [In Latin scientific naming, the first, capitalized word is the genus, which many separate unique species can have -- but the second word, the species or specific name, narrows it down to a unique, individual kind of organism.] So, all tanagers are Piranga ___________ .

Scarlet tanager: Piranga olivacea

Summer tanager: Piranga rubra

Hepatic tanager: Piranga flava (seriously! NO, not referring to this guy -- apparently it means yellow. And I think hepatic means red...)

So -- ludoviciana is the Latin conversion for the word Louisiana. It refers to where the bird was first identified by Lewis and Clark. Not in the state of Louisiana as we know it today, but somewhere in the great expanse of the Louisiana Purchase. 

The handsome fellow above was foraging with a female, probably passing through to northward or eastward locales to breed. He was a welcome addition to my work of weeding in the restored vegetation at Mountain Lake in the Presidio.

Unlike the usual film, I should mention that this was shot with a DSLR.

Goldback Fern

Goldback fern, Marin County, 2012.

Goldback fern, Pentagramma triangularis, is a cool plant to discover: it's unmistakable; if you find it you're probably in a special place; and, you can make a temporary "fern tattoo" using its leaves. The underside of the leaf becomes so rich with golden spores that it shimmers in gold. Carefully plucking one of these leaves in the right time of year allows one to place it on her skin, gently press, then take it away to reveal an intricate golden fern pattern.

This series of two photos (click the two links in this sentence) shows the remarkable color difference between the green top of the leaf and the gold "back." 

The plant is called P. triangularis because the overall leaf shape is, you guessed it, triangular.

And its habitat is varied, but as I mentioned above, I seem to have found this plant in places that I already have grown fond of. I think this is because it's a small, low-growing plant and you must be moving slowly to see it. If you're moving slowly, staring at the ground, it's hopefully because you're smitten with your surroundings. (Other reasons for this behavior may include a lost wallet or camera, but that is a different story.)

It's a Gull

This is not a human-having-bird birth announcement. I'm posting today as Public Service Announcement that some birders don't like to hear the word "seagull". I used to think I was referring to other people when I made this statement. But I recently realized that I am now a person who is irked by the word. 

"There's no such thing as a seagull" is what we birders say. If it's a gull, figure out what it is. (This is not always easy, even for many birders.) If you don't know what it is, call it "a gull."  If you do know what it is, there are over 20 North American possibilities... it's a Western, ring-billed, California, Thayer's, Heermann's, Sabine's, Franklin's, laughing, herring,  mew, little, great black-backed, glaucous-winged, ivory, yellow-footed, yellow-legged, etc. The list goes on, but you won't find "seagull" on it.

Gull and Glare, Ocean Beach, 2011.

Above is a Heermann's gull that I saw at Ocean Beach, SF. This is a common sighting when I saw it in November. This is an attractively colored bird that's pretty easy to identify if you give yourself a chance. Its bill is bright red with a black tip. Its head is pure white and it has a grey belly and darker grey back, and black legs; all its different tones have smooth transitions, as if drawn in pastels.

Heermann's gull can only be seen in western North America. Its world population is only about 525,000, 90 percent of which, amazingly, breed on a single small island in Mexico's Gulf of California. 

Death-camas

Death-camas, or plants of the genus Zigadenus, are a stunningly beautiful, deadly, and widely distributed group of plants. They were well known by Native Americans and settlers, but now they bloom silently on the hill that overlooks the paved and densely inhabited Mission district of San Francisco. 

One of the coolest things about this city for nature-lovers as myself is that many of the highest vistas of the City have been preserved as parks. And of those parks, a few have been preserved with the authentic plants, minerals, and soil that nature placed there over the millenia preceding European settlement. The City's wildlife has been removed or altered, either intentionally (probably, as in the case of grizzly bear and puma), or unintentionally (as in the tragic case of the Xerces blue butterfly, the last known individual of which was collected by a scientist wishing to assist the species, I've heard; this species also has the distinction of being the first extinction caused by development). 

Death-camas -- in some cases, even when it flowers -- looks very much like camas -- an edible species of a different genus Camassia. Another kicker is that they often grow together. Camas is (or once was) also a plant that enjoyed a widespread range in North America, making it a staple in the native diet. They say it tastes like a sweet potato.

Fremont's death-camas, Bernal Hill, March 2012.

 

The photo here was taken on Bernal Hill. A small population of Fremont's death-camas (Toxicoscordion fremontii) lies on the north-facing slope of the hill, which lines up directly with the street on which I live, South Van Ness Avenue. I was delighted to find it one day upon walking the hill in an area where I'd seen other natives in bloom in spring before. I returned as soon as I could in the following days, early enough for dew, with a tripod and fresh roll of film and did some shooting.