Potrero Meadow

Potrero Meadow is on the north side of Mt. Tamalpais, a 1.5-mile hike from the parking lot at Rock Spring. When I first moved to California and lived in Santa Barbara, I was told it was funny to name a place La Cumbre Peak , since “La Cumbre” is Spanish for “peak” and you end up with a place named The Peak Peak.

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Potrero Meadow

 Strybing Charging Admission

Strybing Arboretum started charging a $7 non-resident admission this month. When I entered via the parking lot off Lincoln Avenue (behind the Hall of Flowers, where there’s a free “antique paper” show going on today), the gate was locked.

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Strybing Charging Admission

 Pan-O-Rama

The native file would print at about 74 inches wide by 18 inches high. I’m reluctant to even post the severely diminished scale of this and the following panorama because the originals are just so much cooler.

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Pan-O-Rama

 Peregrine At Pt. Reyes

I was down on McClure’s Beach and had stopped photographing for a while so I could eat a ham and turkey wrap I’d brought along. I sat in the sand looking out over the ocean at the passing pelicans and the dozens upon dozens of recreational fishing boats offshore. Most were far away to the north, but a few were much closer.

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Peregrine At Pt. Reyes

 White Pelicans Over Abbotts Lagoon

On my way back from Tomales Point and McClure’s Beach I spotted a small flock of American White Pelicans circling above Abbotts Lagoon. As their circles took them higher, they drifted off to the southeast. I usually think of white pelicans as winter birds, but apparently (according to this DFG brochure ) they can be seen at any time of the year.

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White Pelicans Over Abbotts Lagoon

 Buzzworm On The Benstein

Although I’d been looking for rattlesnakes at a likely spot earlier in the day, I didn’t find one — I mean, one didn’t find me — until I was heading back to the Jeep from High Marsh. The trail is almost all uphill on the way back, and I took the opportunity to get some exercise by picking up the pace

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Buzzworm On The Benstein

 Bristlecone Pines

We hoped to view sunset from the Patriarch Grove on the day we arrived at the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, so after setting up the tent and resting awhile we got back in the Jeep and headed up to 11,000 feet. It’s almost 20 miles from the campground to the highest of the two main groves, and everything beyond the lower Schulman Grove is unpaved.

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Bristlecone Pines

 Pixels, Picas and Points, Oh My!

You know you’re not in Kansas anymore when inches simply won’t do. Although I use Photoshop CS4, I’ve had the whole CS2 package for several years. Only now have I decided to buckle down and learn something about one of the non-Photoshop programs, that being InDesign

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Pixels, Picas and Points, Oh My!

 Muir Woods

I had more than one moment of doubt this morning concerning the wisdom of getting out of bed after about five hours’ sleep and driving across the Golden Gate Bridge to Muir Woods National Monument. The first moment arrived at a little past 6 a.m., when I found the entrance to Muir Woods gated, locked and verboten . Ditto for the overflow lot, and none of the park’s signs indicated an opening time

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Muir Woods

 TV Icon

I can think of at least one trail marker in Tennessee Valley that incorporates a picture of a Great Blue Heron, and if the park has an animal icon, I guess that would be it. (I wanted to look into it more, but the NPS web page for T.V. is broken.) Although Tennessee Valley is the first place I ever saw a Great Egret capture a rodent, it’s been months since I last saw a large egret or heron in

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TV Icon

 Coyote In The Grass

As I was driving along Bolinas Ridge I spotted three deer standing still as fenceposts and intently focused on something in front of them. I backed up to a nearby pull-out to see what was going on, and only after I stopped and rolled down the tinted window did I spot the coyote sitting in the grass, maybe 40-50 yards from the young deer, one of whom was a buck.

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Coyote In The Grass

 Duxbury Reef

It was Friday and I’d been wanting to get back up to Mt. Burdell to check on the vernal pool, but there was a chance my wife could join me for a hike there over the weekend, so I thought about a return trip to Duxbury Reef instead. I checked the tide table on my desk calendar and saw there’d be a minus tide at 6:30 in the morning, so off I went

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Duxbury Reef

 Elk Sunrise

Having stopped at Nicasio Reservoir to photograph the Black Mountain dawn, there was very little chance I was going to make it to Abbotts Lagoon by sunrise. I considered trying for nearby Kehoe Beach since it’s a shorter walk to the interesting bits, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and even the usual pastel-pink horizon was just about played out by the time I reached Pierce Point Road

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Elk Sunrise

 Black Mountain

As I was about to leave home at around 4:30 a.m. last Sunday I looked around at my camera packs and other gear arrayed on the livingroom floor and had a sudden thought about going back to bed. I’d been planning to get out to Pt. Reyes and start the day by photographing the sunrise, but I still hadn’t decided where I wanted to be when the sun came up

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Black Mountain

 Kitchen Macros

Excuse me for just trying to pass the time, but I got my second tick bite infection in as many weeks yesterday, and it’s not very comfortable to even wear a shirt much less go out and enjoy this beautiful (though windy) day. I was tempted to post a picture of the infected area, but it’s on my belly and shows maybe too much naked flesh for a family-safe nature blog

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Kitchen Macros

 Intertwined

A lot of nature observation involves simply standing still until the commotion caused by our arrival subsides, then opening our senses to what’s around us. With poison hemlock and stinging nettle around, we can perhaps be forgiven for not entertaining our senses of taste and touch. And if you’re like me, you might take your sense of smell for granted, especially if it’s slightly out of whack

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Intertwined

 Can You Herp Me Now?

Thanks to Yosemite Sam, I’ve always thought of these guys as horny toads. I saw my first one in the Ventana Wilderness sometime back in the 20th Century and only just learned that they also live on Mount Diablo. I got these photos early on my hike up the Black Point Trail and spent the rest of my hike obsessing about finding my other principal quarry, the Chaparral Broomrape, which I didn’t see

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Can You Herp Me Now?

 More Broomrapes

Thanks to Ken-ichi over at Flickr for posting directions to this excellent Chaparral Broomrape, a plant I’d never even heard of before, much less seen. The plant is parasitic on the roots of Chamise, and I spent quite a bit of time looking for it before I finally spotted my first specimen, a tiny, flowerless critter maybe two inches high. I reached down to touch it to confirm that it wasn’t just

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More Broomrapes

 Plants What Ain’t Green

I headed up the Hogback Fire Road to the Hoo-Koo-E-Koo Trail in search of an excellent wildflower I’ve never seen before, called California Ground Cone (Boschniakia strobilacea, supposedly named after a Russian botanist named Boschniaki, but I can’t find anything about him on the web), which isn’t green because it doesn’t have chlorophyll. It’s said to be a root parasite, and I’ve been told it

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Plants What Ain’t Green

 TOOB, Pt. 2

I was watching some deer along Bolinas Ridge when I spotted this one browsing her way toward a couple of California Poppies. I thought it would make a nice picture to have them in the scene with her, but she improved it quite a bit when she walked right over to the poppies and nipped one off. It always interests me when I see a deer eat something besides its usual browse of grass and small

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TOOB, Pt. 2