Our days at Point Reyes National Seashore

We recently spent a few days enjoying exploring Point Reyes National Seashore. We had a very pleasant and relaxing time. We spent our nights in a little cabin called the Hideaway just north of the little town of Point Reyes Station. The first day we visited the Point Reyes lighthouse and Drake's beach. The lighthouse was interesting at the bottom of 308 steps. 308 steps back to the top too. Great views, an excellent vantage point from which to watch the whale migrations. We walked for a mile north on Drake's beach and saw an unusual sight, an otter dragging a dead seagull across the sand. First time for that. On the internet looking up the diet of otters, one writer called them opportunivores, sometimes eating things that were offered up by chance. The otter rapidly drug the gull into a culvert and disappeared into the brush at the side of a little creek and I wasn't fast enough to get a picture. Day two, after spending some time exploring the town of Point Reyes Station (great market with lots of organic produce and an A plus deli that we ate from 3 times while we were there, thrift store, nice little book store, and several excellent galleries and gifts shops) we headed north to the Abbott's Lagoon trail out to the ocean.
Not a long hike, maybe 3 miles round trip, with a surprising amount of wildlife. A coyote walking across a field, a covey of quail searching for food beside the trail and walking within two feet of us as we quietly stood there watching, a great blue heron harvesting food in a shallow part of one of the lagoons, great number of gulls, pelicans, Canadian geese and many other seabirds I didn't recognize. Sitting at the beach, we saw a whale out in the ocean raise it's body up out of the water and saw a half a dozen spouting a number of times. On our way back we found a dead young pelican (sadness) and took a few of it's feathers to add to our feather altar. Day three led us to Limantour beach, a wide and very long stretch of sand. We walked south on it for quite a while and found a pool of fresh water, the end of a seasonal stream, where dozens of several species of gulls hung out and washed in the pool. The 3 gulls at the top left of the collage are Heermann's gulls of which there were many. Deer were also eating from the plant life that grew along the bottom of the cliffs where water trickled out to help them grow, The buck deer in the collage was in the yard where we were staying, harvesting apples that were starting to fall out of a tree while we were there. The residents of the area have left an easement on which deer can come and go from the forest. We're looking forward to returning to Point Reyes at another time to do more exploring including the Tule elk reserve. We did see a few elk at a distance north of the road to Drakes' beach. A very fun trip.

Playing With Photoshop

For years I've been playing with photoshop and manipulating digital images I've taken with my various cameras. This is a sky at sunset in Chico just before Christmas a few years ago, a frame that I created in photoshop and a cucumber beetle that landed on my hand as I was sitting outside eating my lunch.

Once in Santa Rosa, we were walking through Coddingtown Mall and I became fascinated with some manikins that were in a shop window and took a multitude of pictures of them to use in various ways.

They were fun to play with.

The woman was a small doll in a store window along Main Street in Mendocino, about 6 inches high. The professor with the magnifying glass was one of my grandkids toys.

The lizard image was taken at The Living Desert Zoo in Palm Desert near Palm Springs in southern California. The fly and the rose were both residents of Caspar. The background is a sheet of copper that I textured by roller printing in my jewelry studio. Follow this link to see more about roller printing. ROLLER PRINTING

A mandala constructed from one of the multitude of flowers images I have collected.

The Presbyterian church in Mendocino taken through greenery from near the ocean and played with in photoshop to make it more like a drawing.

The flower to the right had just fallen off it's parent plant on a deck at our house in Caspar.
Shortly before I had taken the cricket picture with my new digital Nikon that I had bought to take images of our jewelry. I hadn't even learned how to turn the flash off and it flashed, which was lucky since the reflections on the crickets surface created an interesting aspect to the image. Normally it's hard to get close to crickets but this one had only one rear leg so couldn't move very fast. After a series of portraits, I put it outside and wished it well.

Created mostly in photoshop with a few underlying texture layers from camera images.

Here I am behind the swinging door. I got out eventually and went on with my life.

Little bird

 I was working in our studio Monday afternoon and Carlie stuck her head in the door and said, "Jima,
come quick". I followed her through the kitchen to the small room by the back deck and there by the window was this small bird looking a little stunned. It had accidentally flow in through the door which we had open to take advantage of the warm outside air and couldn't figure out how to get out. She said it had banged against the window several times trying to escape. I stood for a minute trying to decide whether just to close the door to the kitchen while leaving the outside door open, hoping it would find it's own way out or try to catch it and take it outside.

 

I finally just reached out and took it gently in my hand and while talking softly to it took it outside and set it on the deck railing. I rubbed its back softly and continued to talk to it asking that it wait for a minute while I went to get my camera to take some nice pictures of it.  It was still there when I returned, confused and slightly stunned I assume and I took quite a few shots of it from all angles. The colors and subtle textures of it's feathers were fascinating to me. I really liked the odd and asymmetrical white spot on the end of one tail feather.

After I finished taking pictures it started moving moving a little and
making short little flights of a foot or so and then in a flash it was off into one of the trees 15 or 20 feet away. There are flocks of these little guys around, very fast, moving through the trees that are full of berries in the yard. I haven't been able to find a picture of this one on the internet yet so don't know the species.

Sunday morning early as we were getting ready for the book sale at the breakfast at the Caspar Community Center, we were treated to this really incredibly dramatic sunrise, what a treat.

My Ft. Bragg Insect Neighbors

 Even when I was very young I had a fascination with creatures and insects were part of the fascinating ones. I got into the rhythm when I lived in Caspar, just south of Ft. Bragg for 17 years, out on the edge of the pygmy forest, of taking pictures of my neighboring creatures, many of whom were insects. There were several species of dragonflies that I saw from time to time in my yard there and captured images of. I never saw one of these red ones there though I had seen one at a small pond at a friends house in Ft. Bragg a few years ago. I see these at my Ft. Bragg house every couple of days. I know there at least two because I've seen two at once.

Dragonflies are often difficult to capture images of because they are kind of shy and fly away when you try to get close. That happened with these guys at first but an odd thing happened after a few days of trying to get close. I was able to get very close, having the camera within a few inches and once actually touching ones body gently. It flew away then but in a few seconds came back to the same spot where I was still waiting. I have no idea what this is about. I hum to them and wish them well but don't have a clue as to why they now seem more unafraid.

I like looking at the details of their wing structures, the engineering is kind of interesting to me.  They are just about the best and fastest insect flyers and do amazing maneuvers in the air. I think one reason they are attracted to my yard is the abundance of other insects since they are predator creatures.

 I've seen a couple of other species of dragonflies in the yard, a small blue and black one and a larger one only seen from a distance that seemed to be black and white with maybe a touch of blue or green, kind of iridescent. Hope to be able to get pictures of them sometime this summer.

I've seen guys like this one to the right in Caspar and Mendocino, not a bee, some kind of a fly like creature but bee sized, I often see them as well as honey bees and native bumble bees on adjacent flowers of some of the plants in my yard.

This honey bee was on my back deck on a basil plant and I think maybe it was at the end of it's life span, sitting still or moving really slowly. But maybe it was just taking a little time out from it's busy schedule, they work really hard. I'm happy that I'm seeing more honey bees this year than I have for the last several.

Borage plants have self seeded all around our new yard and I'm happy about that as the bees really like their flowers, I've see as many as 15 or 20 bees at once on a sunny afternoon, mostly small black native bees but some honey bees.

You can tell this one has been working a lot because of the pollen on it's  legs.

This one also was being very still, resting or possibly at the end of it's lifespan. These guys usually move really fast and only spend a few seconds at each flower they visit so it's often difficult to get pictures. I sometimes put my camera in burst mode and just push the shutter in and let it take picture after picture fast, hoping I'll get useable images. Sometimes I'm lucky. I'll keep trying to get images of my neighbors and post some more in the future.

Grandkids and Giraffes

Each summer each of our two grandchildren get to come and visit us on the coast for a few days by themselves. A treat for us for sure and hopefully a treat for them. Our 16 year old grandson Logan just left but while he was here we went down and visited an interesting place in Pt. Arena called the B. Bryan Preserve. We saw 3 species of antelopes, 3 species of zebras and 6 young male giraffes of the most threatened species in Africa, the Rothschild giraffe. It was a treat to able to see them fairly close and, in the case of the giraffes, to hand feed them leaves and pieces of carrot.

The preserve is not a zoo but a 100 acre private preserve dedicated to helping threatened and extremely threatened African hoof stock species continue to exist. They offer jeep tours for small groups to see the animals close up twice a day at feeding time. Reservations are required. For all the details check out their website at B. Bryan Preserve
Below are some pictures of our visit.

Deer Surprise

 When we lived out in Caspar, in the country, deer were often an everyday occurrence in the yard sometimes as many as three at a time and a few times as many as 5 or 6. Yes, the babies are cute but it can be frustrating when they eat everything that's not behind a fence and sometimes even jump a fence that is 6 or 7 feet high. I did learn though in the 17 years there the plants that they never or rarely eat.
When we moved to Ft. Bragg I naively assumed that deer wouldn't be around. Wrong. I've seen this little buck with velveteen covered antlers almost every day for the last week, jumping fences into yards, scooting along alleys and walking across the street like here. I saw him and a doe near where we live this afternoon. We're close to Pudding Creed, at the north end of town and it is a fairly wild wide area running east and west and like a freeway for traveling animal life. I haven't seen any here but last year a black bear came up from Noyo River canyon a little south of here and walked into the automatic door of the local hospital looking for food. Surprise.

I was out running errands this afternoon and was driving along a street and got a glimpse of this. I drove half a block past and had to turn around and go back and I shot about 20 pictures out my van window of which these are two. What a picture. It was late afternoon and the window was facing west so the late sun was shining in the window, I guess it was enjoying the warmth. The blinds look like this might have happened before. I was really taken with color of the cat in relationship to the blinds and black background contrast. Another gift from my photographic guardian angels.

Pictures of my Neighbors

 It's the time of year when I start taking more pictures of the creatures in my neighborhood and as I travel. I like to watch them live in the moment but have found that I really enjoy being able to look at the pictures later of these guys in their environment. Gives me a rich feeling of kinship with them. These little guys to the right were part of a group of 5 babies being watched over by both parents at a boat ramp/picnic area in Lucerne on the northern shore of Clear Lake. Whenever we travel to Chico and Nevada City we stop there and eat lunch and use the facilities. They were moving fairly fast so I took a lot of pictures with the camera in burst mode and was rewarded with this shot.

  As more and more flowers make their appearance bees and other pollinators come out in greater numbers. This was taken in front of the Mendocino Art Center where shoulder high bushes flourish with a multitude of flowers and there are often dozens of bees and other flying creatures flying about capturing the nectar. I like the clumps of pollen that are trapped on this fellows legs.

From the same image but blown up to see more detail. Quiet a visually striking fellow. Working hard for the hive.