October 2009

Baby Booties For Birds

October 30, 2009 Birds

Last night, H. and I put baby booties on sea birds. Actually, baby socks made into bird booties. There were grebes and murres in our section of the hospital. More than 400 ailing seabirds were driven by van and flown by a Coast Guard C-130 to IBRRC in Fairfield, California. The birds came from Washington [...]

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Hues of the Central Coast

October 28, 2009 California

Hugh and I spent the weekend in Morro Bay, attending a conference that included a dynamic keynote address from photographer George Lepp. It’s an admittedly geeky endeavor when you consider that a ball-head and a bubble level can get some rousing applause in this crowd. I love it. Events like this validate my gear brain [...]

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Shorebird Nation Rises Again

October 22, 2009 Animal Behavior

Ever since I picked up a telephoto lens and aimed it at my first non-human earthling, my seasons have morphed into migration schedules. Winter = Ducks. Spring= Babies. Fall (best time of all) = Shorebirds. I used to be an urban-girl-night-person — before I knew what I was. Autumn was: early darkness, early cocktails. (Okay, [...]

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Bay & Beach Flotsam: Hayward Shoreline

October 20, 2009 Bay Flotsam

Capturing the flotsam tossed around on San Francisco Bay — this episode shot in a small beach cove at Hayward Shoreline. Check out Bay & Beach Flotsam #3 for more info on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

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Sunday in the Park With Pelicans

October 18, 2009 Pelicans

Always my favorite SF Bay residents . . . photographed from Tiburon this afternoon. Related posts on pelicans: Miss Them Already: California Pelicans | Pelicanorama | The Flight of the Pelican | Mixed Use, Pelican Style | Up on the Roof

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The Ghostliness of Black Diamond Mines

October 17, 2009 Bay Area

Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve isn’t haunted, but it’s a park grown upon the ghosts of California’s history. In terms of our earliest history, the spirit of the Ohlone and Miwok people still permeates the land. When I stand on our remaining wild hilltops, I look to the expanse of tract development over what, by [...]

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Black and White

October 15, 2009 Bay Area

I almost expected Man-Thing to come crawling out of the mud this morning. The humidity evoked spirits of the bayou: moss, mosquitos, mint juleps. The only time California resembles a swamp is in the wake of a tropical storm, the same wake which pummeled us with record rains a few days ago. We did about [...]

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Just Flying: Some Pictures

October 12, 2009 Animal Behavior

We cancelled our cable service . . . again. I’m not sure what our longest stretch of cable t.v. access has been, but, it always comes to this eventually: we look at the 100+ dollars we’re pissing away each month and surrender our cable box the next day. Here’s our cable substitute this time — [...]

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Where Old Docks Go to Die

October 11, 2009 Bay Area

Old docks smell, this much I can tell you. You’ll catch a whiff of decomposing mussels and sea greens long before you ever see the old boards stacked, as these particular boards were, in the parking lot of the Berkeley Marina. The Marina is renovating — replacing the old A-B-C docks with improved versions. And [...]

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Studies in Vagueness: Don’t Play With Your Food

October 10, 2009 Food

I grew up with parents scarred by World War II, so you can imagine the [deserved] admonitions we got with respect to wasting food. I used to cringe when Letterman dropped watermelons off New York city rooftops. Frozen turkey bowling . . . well that one completely busted my little paradigm. But food, in all [...]

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Reclaimed: Las Gallinas Wildlife Ponds

October 9, 2009 Bay Area

Reclamation is among my favorite themes — especially as it pertains to nature. I root for the vines overtaking fire hydrants and windblown seeds germinating new habitat in former refuse sites…

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Ducky Surveillance

October 6, 2009 Ducks and Others

I snapped some shots this morning of a ducks flying overhead. Poor ducks will reverse course sometimes if they see something pointed at them … like a camera lens. “I promise, I’m not a hunter, really” — doesn’t get you anywhere with this understandably suspicious class of birds. If you make a trip to heavily [...]

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Foreclosure Birds . . . and Other Pets

October 5, 2009 Domestic Animals

Anyone who works in an animal rescue field knows that the current rate of home foreclosures never bodes well for pets. The number of cats and dogs callously left behind skyrockets. And beyond the innate emotional cruelty of the abandonment, some pets are locked in the homes with no food or water, left to starve [...]

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Mute Swans . . . Not Really

October 2, 2009 Geese and Swans

We call them “mute” because they’re comparatively quiet. If you’ve ever experienced the clamor of Tundra Swans banking toward the wetlands, “mute” will seem an appropriate designation for these travelers. But they’re not silent as the name suggests. They’ll hiss and utter caw-like calls. Overhead, they render melodies, pushing air into songs and squeaks with [...]

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