The light is coming...

· San Francisco

This time of year is wonderful for me. The short days, the strong urge to hibernate. Wake up and lay plans, cook, and spend time with loved ones. We usually take extra time away to escape the distress of the holiday madness and escape to a place with easier access to nature. This year as a decided decade birthday arrived we took the second half of the month off from work. We spent the first week in Stinson Beach and the Point Reyes area. On the day we arrived we were behind some bikes on a particularly curvy part of Hwy 1 with someone desperately needing to go faster behind us. We pulled off at a dirt area designed for such behavior and decided to take a breather and appreciate the beauty. As we sat there a family of three coyotes came to visit us. The fearless youth you strode right up to us and checked us out. Dad who kept looking behind him approached more slowly and Mom with a bit of a limp finally came around the bend. Arriving with coyote magic on our side felt very much like an early win. Each time a car raced around the curve they all winced but they felt fine with us stopped in our little fiat and came quite close within a few feet of us. Definitely, the closest I've ever been to a coyote.

Young adult coyote.
Who I'm calling the "Dad" is clearly bigger and warier and decidedly concerned about the youth and the one behind him with a paw injury.

We continued on to stay at the Sandpiper Inn which has little cottages from a different era, half a block from the beach. That first evening was decidedly chilly in the high 30s outside. The next day we set out for our favorite walk up Steep Ravine over Pantoll and down the Matt Davis trail. We got to the turn-off for the bridge to the Dipsey stairs and the remainder of Steep Ravine was closed! The bridge has washed out and Friends of Mt. Tam are fundraising to get it repaired. Here is a link to the Go Fund Me page, help them reach their goal if you can. This trail serves so many people! Since we weren't able to go on the Steep Ravine trail, we turned off and went up what seemed like a zillion stairs up the Dipsey, and then circled around to Pantoll and continued down Matt Davis. It was a longer hike but fun because part of it was new and part of it was old.

Varied Thrush hiding in plain sight.
Air pollution was and is bad - still worth it to be hiking. Thank goodness for Western Medicine.
Trail Bunny

We also were privileged to see a bobcat who looked at us from close range with a great deal of trepidation while we were rendered speechless. There was no chance I could move to pick up the camera, it was gone in a flash. We also were visited by an adult rabbit, a lone coyote hunting, and several deer.

Customary secret lunch turnoff
Mid-day but gloomy romantic feeling because of the air we humans have polluted.
A banana slug on our way down the Matt Davis.
The November rains meant there was water in the streams, the hills are starting to turn green and sacred places like this waterfall had happy moss.
Beach Bunny when we were back from our hike we went bird watching on the beach.
Nice way to end the day.

The next big hike we took was up in Point Reyes. It's the Drakes Estero Trail and instead of going to the White Gate Trail like last time we took the turnoff for Sunset Beach. In a forest on this trail many years ago we saw an owl during the day!

Enormous intertidal body of water that goes for miles
Sunset Trail kept getting wetter and marshier and we finally sat down on a dry log and looked at thousands of birds (mostly too far away to identify)
Fresh water pool that is completely captured by water plants.
Perfect tracks
Sunset Christmas Eve in SF.

Lichens from this trip:

Mosses from this trip:

Birds from this trip:

  1. Surf Scoter
  2. Anna's Hummingbird
  3. Long-billed Curlew
  4. WIllet
  5. Bewick's Wren
  6. Hermit Thrush
  7. Golden-crowned Sparrow
  8. Townsend's Warbler
  9. Band-tailed Pidgeon
  10. Whimbrel
  11. Western Gull
  12. California Gull
  13. Brown Pelican
  14. Turkey Vulture
  15. Sharp-shinned Hawk
  16. Bald Eagle
  17. Red-shouldered Hawk
  18. Red-tailed Hawk
  19. Acorn Woodpecker
  20. Downy Woodpecker
  21. Black Phoebe
  22. Steller's Jay
  23. California Scrub-Jay
  24. American Crow
  25. Common Raven
  26. Chestnut-backed Chickadee
  27. Bushtit
  28. Ruby-crowned Kinglet
  29. Brown Creeper
  30. Western Bluebird
  31. Varied Thrush
  32. Swainson's Thrush
  33. American Robin
  34. Fox Sparrow
  35. White-crowned Sparrow
  36. Song Sparrow
  37. Red-winged Blackbird
  38. Yellow-rumped Warbler
  39. Brant
  40. Mallard
  41. Green-winged Teal
  42. Bufflehead
  43. California Quail
  44. Pied-billed Greeb
  45. American Coot
  46. Black-bellied Plover
  47. Killdeer
  48. Western Sandpiper
  49. Wilson's Snipe
  50. Ring-billed Gull
  51. Common Loon
  52. Double-crested Cormorant
  53. American White Pelican
  54. Great Blue Heron
  55. Snowy Egret
  56. Northern Harrier
  57. Cooper's Hawk
  58. Ferruginous Hawk
  59. Belted Kingfisher
  60. Northern Flicker
  61. American Kestrel
  62. Say's Phoebe
  63. Chipping Sparrow
  64. Savanah Sparrow
  65. California Towhee
  66. Song Sparrow
  67. Spotted Towhee
  68. Marbled Godwit