From the category archives:

Bay Area

Thumbnail image for So Long, Lake Merritt

So Long, Lake Merritt

August 7, 2010 Birds

A series of farewell posts to my Bay Area home and haunts. We’re heading to Seattle for a year-plus . . . on to new photographic adventures. Lake Merritt was the first place I touched soil — or rather, marine sediment –after returning to the Bay Area from Los Angeles. We were perched above Oakland [...]

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Dragonfly or Damselfly? A Few Clues

May 25, 2010 East Bay

Re-posted from last year — in tribute to burgeoning life on the springtime pond. In this melee of global strife and catastrophe, there’s at least one thing you can know for sure: dragonfly or damselfly. I blame the awesome macro of my telephoto lens for this post. I went to UC Berkeley Botanical Garden for [...]

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The Ravens of Ocean Beach

May 22, 2010 Corvids

With onshore winds, Ocean Beach is my favorite place to photograph ravens. Along the Great Highway, these feathered balls of onyx launch into the wind like superheroes, hovering over the beach below with tails trailing like capes. I had some time to kill after an appointment in the Sunset. I grabbed my camera and headed [...]

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The Saucy Sailor Boy

May 19, 2010 East Bay

I have a weakness for bad lyrics, and 18th century sea chanties like The Saucy Sailor Boy probably take the prize. If you live here in San Francisco, you can take the kids (or just your own self) to Hyde Pier for monthly (and free) Sea Chanty Sing-a-Longs. You’ll get hot cider if you bring [...]

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The Wild Things Among Us (Wildcare Video)

May 4, 2010 Bay Area

Saw this video at the Wildcare website today– about the local wildlife that shares our Bay Area habitat.

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City On (and Behind) Hills

April 3, 2010 Development

“I don’t know of any other city where you can walk through so many culturally diverse neighborhoods, and you’re never out of sight of the wild hills. Nature is very close here.”

~ Gary Snyder (poet)

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Mine!

March 29, 2010 Sonoma County

This swan took issue with the duck’s proximity — a Blue-winged Teal just minding her own business, dabbling in the pond with her Blue-winged mates.

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Mudbath

March 21, 2010 Amphibians

I’m keen to see eyes peering out of mudflats . . . the creatures from the bog, the foraging carp, the bullfrog in camo, a Pacific chorus frog in a dewdrop. I shot this photo at Blake Garden, just north of Berkeley in the Kensington Hills. My vision is tuned to anomalies and, sure enough, [...]

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Showdown at Berkeley Marina

February 24, 2010 Cats & Dogs

“This country ain’t big enough for the two of us. So I’m giving you ’til sundown to get out of town.” ~ The Virginian

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The Great Newt Commute

February 8, 2010 Amphibians

The Great Newt Commute is what happens on the way to the Great Newt Party. From the first winter rains through early spring, California Newts migrate from their summer homes to their winter breeding grounds — to ponds and streams where they mate and lay eggs before trundling back up the hills and into burrows [...]

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Spe r’s

January 29, 2010 East Bay

We used to live down the road from a lightbulb store called “Lightbulbs Unlimited.” In Los Angeles. The shop had an illuminated sign. Naturally, of course . . . it was a lightbulb store. But for seven years, the shopkeepers never replaced the dead bulbs in their sign. So for the entire time we lived [...]

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Above SF From Twin Peaks

November 24, 2009 San Francisco

“It’s the magic towers of a steel fairyland — the beacon atop the proud Mark, the red, thermometer-like cap of the Drake, the sturdy, four-square crest of Mother Russ, the sudden, blunt end of Coit Tower — that make up the minarets of a metropolis . . .” “It’s the indescribable conglomeration of beauty and [...]

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The Unheralded Hulet Hornbeck

November 14, 2009 East Bay

Until this week, I didn’t know how much gratitude I owed Mr. Hulet Hornbeck. The sign below marks the head of a commemorative trail at Carquinez Strait Regional Shoreline — a park in the vast and lovely East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD). When Hornbeck began his tenure as Chief of Land Acquisition for EBRPD [...]

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The Ghostliness of Black Diamond Mines

October 17, 2009 East Bay

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 Peninsula & South

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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Where Old Docks Go to Die

October 11, 2009 East Bay

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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Reclaimed: Las Gallinas Wildlife Ponds

October 9, 2009 Birds

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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Mute Swans . . . Not Really

October 2, 2009 Sonoma County

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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Seeing the Sora

September 28, 2009 East Bay

You’ll hear Soras more often than you’ll see them. But once in a while you’ll be lucky enough to experience both — when the characteristic Sora call precedes a visual of the Sora wading through the shallows. Soras are in the rail family, not rare, even if they are elusive. They share a lineage with [...]

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Secret Digs of the Great Horned Owl

September 15, 2009 East Bay

Photos of a Great Horned Owl perched in Strawberry Canyon in Berkeley.

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