Ma-le'l Dunes, Northern California

More from the drive home from our last road trip. Scanning the route ahead of us on Google Maps, I noticed a green area on the coast, not far off the highway. According to the website, it's the most pristine remaining dune system in the Pacific Northwest. It was a good spot to get out and stretch our legs and take some photographs.

But before the dunes, here's a Red-shouldered hawk I spotted by our campsite as we were packing up to leave in the morning.

There were some interesting plants on the dunes. I wasn't familiar with any of them. (Except maybe the goldenrod, if that's what it was.) It was the end of October, so it was late in the season, even for the coast.

Down on the beach, there was a large flock (aka "grain") of Sanderlings. They are fun to watch, either individually as they run down the beach pecking in the sand, or as a group in flight, where they rival starling murmurations.

Here's a short video of Shelley's:

This larger, browner bird turned out to be a Marbled Godwit.

I liked the shapes and patterns of the dunes themselves.

Between the dunes and the estuary there was a strip of lichen covered trees.

We found several ant nests. Seek's AI thought these were Western Thatching Ants, but the humans on iNaturalist disagreed and only identified them as Field Ants.

Here's another short video of Shelley's (showing off the capabilities of the Sony RX10m3)

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Sunset on the Beach

More from the way home from our last road trip. After crossing the Sierras over Tioga Pass via Tanaya Lake, we made our way west, arriving back at the coast at Fort Bragg. (Not to be confused with the military base in North Carolina.) We camped overnight just north of there, at MacKerricher State Park. Stretching our legs after a day of driving, we walked down to the beach just as the sun was going down.

I was a little disappointed to identify this plant as invasive Highway Iceplant. But the colors were still pretty in the warm evening light.

But mostly it was just the waves and the gradually setting sun.

And the beach itself.

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Yosemite Patterns

One of the challenges of driving the west coast is getting past San Francisco without getting funneled into endless freeways. (which are not my idea of a relaxing holiday) On our way home from our last trip we followed the winding Kern river valley and drove north via Lone Pine and Bishop. I hiked up to a paragliding launch near Bishop but the wind didn't cooperate and I ended up hiking back down. From there we took the Tioga pass road back towards the coast through Yosemite National Park. We hadn't driven this way before and it was nice to get a different view of the park. Yosemite Valley is impressive but too touristy for me. We didn't have a lot of time left, and the weather was rainy and probably soon to be snow, but we stopped to stretch our legs at Tenaya Lake.

I had recently read The High Sierra: A Love Story by Kim Stanley Robinson (recommended) so it was interesting to actually be there. The mountains are very different from the Rockies.

There were still the usual suspects around though.

Most of my photographs from here were patterns in the rock and vegetation.

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Through the Window

I've managed to photograph a number of the creatures visiting our yard lately. At first I tried to go outside to photograph them, but they would take off as soon as I appeared, if not as soon as the door opened. I've had a bit more luck staying inside and shooting through the windows. That's not ideal, but it can work surprising well.

The first visitors were three Northern Flickers. Only one of them stuck around long enough for me to get my camera. This looks like a female red-shafted. Confusingly, yellow-shafted females are the ones with red on their head. Flickers are woodpeckers but they feed on the ground mostly on ants and beetles. I'm not sure if this one was finding much but he was digging around vigorously. Northern Flickers are the only North American woodpeckers that are strongly migratory, moving south for the winter.

A robin managed to photobomb one shot.

As you can see in this photo, woodpeckers feet are zygodactyl, with four toes, the first and the fourth facing backward and the second and third facing forward - good for grasping trees.

There were also some Golden-crowned sparrows, which are apparently common, but I haven't noticed them before. They are related to White-crowned sparrows which I see more often.

I was working at my computer when I noticed a couple of hummingbirds go by the window. I didn't pay too much attention since I've seen them briefly other times. But this time they settled on the bush just outside the window. I thought I might be able to get some photographs, but as soon as I stood up to get my camera they left. This happened several times. Eventually I got my camera and kept it on the desk beside me. They came back again and this time I managed to slide out of my chair to the floor and start taking photos. They came back a few more times. I'm not sure if they got accustomed to me, or I got better at moving without scaring them. In the end I was resting my lens against the window only a few feet away from them. I assume this Anna's Hummingbird was a female since it didn't have the brighter colors of the males. I wondered why they were hanging around so much, but then Shelley spotted a new hummingbird feed at one of our neighbors.

Later in the day, a couple of young male Black-tailed mule deer were in the yard. They were quite "full of beans" as my mother would have said. (Which I see may have originally referred to coffee beans.) They were butting heads and, as Shelley described it, bouncing around like kangaroos. (Also known as "pronking" or "stotting".) One of them only had one antler.

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