From the monthly archives:

August 2009

The Flight of the Pelican

August 31, 2009 Pelicans

A title inspired by a recent viewing of Jimmy Stewart and The Flight of the Phoenix . . . a photographic tribute inspired by one of my favorite birds: the Brown Pelican. California Brown Pelican Recovery The Brown Pelican is not quite a Phoenix, raising itself from metaphorical ashes. But it has mythological parallels in [...]

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Bay & Beach Flotsam #3: Why Coastal Cleanup Days Are Critical

August 28, 2009 Bay Flotsam

It was the best of the beach and the not-so-best of the beach. The best — luminous in color and texture, with Brown Pelicans, porpoises and whales gliding parallel to the shore. The not-so-best, well — that was the inspiration for Bay & Beach Flotsam, Episode 3. We had just found two dead sea lions [...]

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Learning From a Racing Pigeon

August 28, 2009 Doves & Pigeons

I think the pigeon people are trying to tell me something. Late last year, I had an overnight pigeon guest, awaiting transport to a wildlife hospital. In April, I drove two [very] baby pigeons to the same hospital. I’m always snapping pigeon photos even when other photographers sweep their lenses right over the pigeon landscape. [...]

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A Mackerel Sky

August 27, 2009 Weather

We went to the Pacific to grab lunch at Nick’s and couldn’t have anticipated the prismatic cycles of yesterday’s sky. At first a mackerel sky, then buttery, then illuminated by flame. Here’s a reasonable representation of our afternoon under the clouds.

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Visiting Hours Over

August 26, 2009 East Bay

A male Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) roots around just before dusk at the Nature Center in Tilden Park.

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Yellow Star Thistle and the Reticular Activating System

August 25, 2009 Flora

Invasive plants and motivational seminars collide in my world. If you’ve ever attended a goal-generating seminar, you’ve probably heard the term Reticular Activating System (RAS) tossed around. It’s used in motivational circles to describe our physiological capacity to pay attention. The RAS is part of a large network in our nervous systems, controlling consciousness, sensory [...]

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White Bliss of Fog

August 24, 2009 Clouds & Fog

It’s our built-in air conditioner, the plume of advection fog* that creeps under and through the Golden Gate Bridge — then cloaks the Bay in varying degrees of opaqueness. I call it “bliss” because I’m really a citizen of the north, disguised as a Californian. My lily-white tones do not betray my state allegiance. My [...]

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Squirrel for a Day

August 24, 2009 Squirrels

Our latest outing to Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline rendered two contenders for the feature. The first, a perfectly posed ground squirrel who had to assess my safety level before resuming his meal. And second, a squirrel clinging to a fence which begged the question — who’s really on the outside? (He was fine [...]

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And now for something completely different . . .

August 23, 2009 Music

A friend of Hugh’s directed this show where Ozzy Osbourne invited a 9-year-old guitar virtuoso to play on Crazy Train. Here’s the vid:

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The Goldfinch and Thistle (A Pub With No Pints)

August 22, 2009 Flora

The Bay Area has a thistle problem, but goldfinches weren’t complaining on our hike yesterday. As stated in this sign, there are earnest efforts to limit the spread of wild artichoke thistle which tends to push out native plants and grasslands. Invasive thistles are aggressive, using up water resources and messing with habitat for wildlife [...]

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The Case of the Fledgling Gull

August 21, 2009 Animal Behavior & Characteristics

A short photo series, as I encountered it. A young gull waits for its parent. Parent arrives, gull follows behind and calls out for minutes on end. Juvenile gets more aggressive, tries for some food from a familiar source. The end. Gulls do wean their young but may continue feeding even older juveniles if the [...]

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Studies in Vagueness: The Mock Snail

August 20, 2009 Mollusks

This title, The Mock Snail caused the tiniest bit of confusion on Flickr. He’s a real snail. It’s just that the psychedelic tone rendered by my Raynox 150 lens inspired a Lewis Carroll reference.

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Studies in Vagueness: Halogen Shadows

August 18, 2009 Photography

Saul’s Deli in Berkeley is an undeniable fave. One of the few things Hugh and I miss from our Los Angeles existence is the old neighborhood deli — with its naugahyde booths and rough-and-tumble wait staff. Saul’s is a bit more refined in its Gourmet Ghetto enclave. But it has a deli pedigree stretching back [...]

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The Silky Wonders of Wunderlich

August 16, 2009 Arachnids/Spiders

Picking up from my previous post — about the rare and elusive Linyphia Vaudvillea … here are a few additional spider (Araneae) observations from our walk at Wunderlich Park in Woodside. I’ve perused countless field guides and websites on California spiders but am still unable to identify the aforementioned species. Other spiders and webs are [...]

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“Chance”

August 15, 2009 Doves & Pigeons

A fellow volunteer at the wildlife hospital found and housed Chance — the homing pigeon who didn’t find his way home. Homing and racing pigeons are banded with traceable numbers. But the problem with Chance’s band is that it was applied more than ten years ago. And between then and now, Chance has changed ownership [...]

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Puttin’ on the Ritz . . . Spider Style

August 13, 2009 Arachnids/Spiders

I didn’t actually see the Vaudevillian face as I shot the spider image (below). Hugh and I were wandering through Wunderlich Park in Woodside (California), impressed by the miles of spider silk, strung like hammocks over the forest. Some were laid in sheets, some were funnel webs. (I’ll write a bit more on the landscape [...]

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Bees and Their Fennel

August 11, 2009 Bees

It never fails that fennel is the best medium for my bee photography — even if it does render consistently yellow backdrops for my bee images…

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Reviving Rail From the Great American Streetcar Scandal

August 9, 2009 Transportation

This post has its genesis in Facebook — that conduit of the useless, the useful, the banal and the revelatory. I don’t mean to knock the uselessly banal in suggesting that, for me, this particular clip was useful. A friend of mine posted a video introduction to the SMART Project (Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit ) [...]

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Things to Know (and Love) About a Japanese Quail

August 6, 2009 Quail and Pheasants and Grouse

He was misidentified but not forgotten — this lone Japanese Quail who fluttered his way into a wildlife hospital and then, into our hands and hearts. We gave him an appropriately Japanese name: “Mikiko” which, loosely translated, means “child of the tree.” A fellow volunteer pointed out that he is not, in fact, a child [...]

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The Case of the Misidentified Quail

August 2, 2009 Quail and Pheasants and Grouse

He handed over the box: “A rescued quail.” We volunteer at a wildlife hospital, so a safe assumption might be California Quail. But assumptions are frivolous in a world where volunteers — well, mostly us newer ones — sometimes miss on species identification. He clearly wasn’t a California Quail. Their markings are distinct and easy [...]

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