More Signs of Spring, or, a hodgepogerry of photography

It's staying light in the evening now, long enough to walk around and get some good shots after dinner. Who's hanging out at the lake these days? (Besides me!?)

Forster's terns are still around and eating fish bigger than their heads! Look at the razor sharp tail on that ninja seabird.

Hummingbird that color coordinates itself with its perch:

Check out the lovely blue green face of this great egret.

And check out egret's supercool park bench hangout. I like its posture here--it had just flown up and landed.

It also comes with a very extendable head, and a bad urban attitude. It was actually taller than me when it did this:


Random turtle. They show up in the lake periodically. They may be washing downstream during the rains, or people may be releasing unwanted pets into the lake. Either way, brackish water is not good for turtles. At least this one made it to the beach:


For Heidi: here are the goslings I promised. This is the third group I've seen, and I think this pair is actually the two I made fun of earlier for defending the spot on top of the chain link maintenance cage. I don't know how you geese did it, but I think you did it. There are three babies; can you spot them all?


And buckeye is blooming now, an adaptation that lets a broad-leaved deciduous tree survive California's summer--it makes a very early effort to get pollinated before it runs out of water and sheds all its leaves around July:

All the little beesies all the little bearsies never walk in threesies always walk in pairsies...

It's that time again:


Squirrel humping time! (Lydia took this picture--isn't it great?). I recently read in Hannah Holmes' book Suburban Safari that the reason you will often see stumpy tailed squirrels is that during the spring mating frenzy, several males will chase the same female and bite off each others' tails in their eagerness to get to the front of the line.

And squirrels aren't the only ones. Canada geese are getting mighty feisty as they defend potential nest sites (including one pair I saw on top of a chain link fence enclosing the water main. Pretty sure that's not gonna work, guys.) Last year, I saw a goose which was almost certainly a hybrid domestic goose/Canada goose. And this year I think I found its parents:


Other animals have made a bit more progress on the romance front, and are already building nests. Double crested cormorants are back at the lake with a vengeance, and some of them are sporting some very Doubleicious crests! They're shy though, so they only let me take pictures of them carrying their damp sticks when they're safe in their nest tree on Bird Island. Can you find Waldo--the cormorant with a stick?

And SOOOME birdies have already MADE their babies. Hummingbirds nest early, apparently so that their nestlings can fly long before hungry jays come looking for a snack for their own babies.
This isn't a great shot, but the baby is on the left looking straight up. Mom is on the right. And if these hummingbirds are going to continue being super fast while hiding in the dark canopy of a tree, that's probably the best I'm likely to get!


And of course there's mallards. They've been acting super crazy, with males chasing females through air and water while quacking up a storm. Mallards have some very disturbing reproductive biology which you can read about here. Once your jaw is back in place, enjoy these... DUCKLINGS!


(not pictured here are the FIVE drakes which were STILL chasing this lady about.)

Spring Part 2: Pride of Madeira, M'dear

Purple Anenomes are blooming in the park now.


















So is Redbud...




And Pride of Madeira is verrry popular with the ladies... lady hummingbirds that is!













I don't know why Blogger keeps rotating this picture.













Horned Grebes are showing their horns (those weird orange things behind the eye):













And Snowy Egrets are getting a bit tufty!

Spring!

January showers bring February flowers, I guess. It's spring at Lake Merrit and everybody knows it. Hummingbirds know it because they are busy defending clumps of sage flowers from anyone who comes near. Of course they'll try to stab other hummers, but I also saw this one attack a seed-eating goldfinch ("If I can't eat these seeds NO ONE WILL!") and an unsuspecting human ("Git away from mah nectar!") There's a reason the Aztec god of war is a hummingbird.






Buckeyes and daffodils also got the memo: