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…
Archives for August 2009
Bay & Beach Flotsam: Why Coastal Cleanup Days Are Critical
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…
Learning From a Racing Pigeon
I think the pigeon people are trying to tell me something. Late last year, I took a rambunctious fledgling pigeon to a nearby 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. So, it…
A Mackerel Sky
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.
Visiting Hours Over
A male Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) roots around just before dusk at the Nature Center in Tilden Park.
Yellow Star Thistle and the Reticular Activating System
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…
The Goldfinch and Thistle (A Pub With No Pints)
The Bay Area has a thistle problem, or so we hear, but goldfinches weren’t complaining on our hike yesterday. Here’s a photo of that Artichoke Thistle (Cynara cardunculus), taken last week in Tilden Park: And a few photos taken in Briones, where ongoing eradication has taken out bunches of the Artichoke Thistle in the grasslands:…
The Mock Snail
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.
The Silky Wonders of Wunderlich
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…
Puttin’ on the Ritz . . . Spider Style
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…