Palo Alto Baylands
Palo Alto Baylands
Last Saturday D. and I returned to Palo Alto Baylands Nature Preserve, and I took more pics. Here they be.
Pigeon in the parking lot.
A ground squirrel finds a perch on a slab of crumbling concrete.
A gull hanging around the parking lot.
This gull is hanging around the sailing station.
Its feet are muddy from walking around in the marsh during low tide.
It's very muddy going.
Most of the small shorebirds have long beaks to probe in the mud for things to eat.
Avocets sweep the flattened tips of their up-curved, slender bills from side to side through the mud rather than poke down into it.
Mudflats at low tide.
It is so hazy it is virtually impossible to discern the East Bay Hills across the Bay.
Omnipresent power lines.
Sailing station floating dock.
Black phoebe.
Free calls!
Oh, wait . . . never mind . . .
Looking up the slough.
Do Not Enter.
A large flock of gulls comes in to land in the slough.
There is chaos briefly as they all take flight and settle back down again.
A marsh gumplant blossom is a luminous vessel backlit by the sun.
A pair of avocets feed in the lagoon across the levee from the preserve's Nature Interpretive Center.
Turkey vulture.
A fenced boardwalk goes out into the marshes to access the high-tension power lines for maintenance and repair.
A snowy egret perches for a moment on the boardwalk for people leading from the Interpretive Center out across the marsh to the Bay.
Two views of the Bay.
Looking up into the eaves of the Interpretive Center, we see the abandoned mud nests of the cliff swallows that raised their young there earlier in the year. They have already left for their long migration to South America.
The dowitcher has a very long, sturdy bill it uses to probe deeply in the mud. The sensitive tip of the upper bill is movable, to be able to grasp food by opening just the tip in thick mud.
At the migratory bird sanctuary near the duck pond, pigeons hang out, and a Muscovy duck and a mallard hen take a nap.
An aberrant pot of some sort sits in the shallows of the lagoon.
I'll bet it called a kettle black.
A view of the duck pond, with the migratory bird sanctuary in the background.
Some kind of infall structure near the shore of the duck pond.
And what's a duck pond without ducks?
Itchy mallard is itchy.
♪♫♪ You put your left foot in, you put your left foot out . . . ♪♫♪
Grooming mallard is well-groomed.
A small plane comes in for a landing at Palo Alto Municipal Airport at the edge of the marsh.
A northern harrier keeps a wary eye on me as I approach to get a pic.
Oops, too close.
It looks like someone really didn't like this edumacational sign.
I'm sure Dennis was a very nice person, but his memorial bench plaque sounds a just a tad creepy.
Fortunately there are many other benches along the trail on which to rest.
A fat bumblebee visit a gumplant blossom
.
Last Saturday D. and I returned to Palo Alto Baylands Nature Preserve, and I took more pics. Here they be.
Pigeon in the parking lot.
A ground squirrel finds a perch on a slab of crumbling concrete.
A gull hanging around the parking lot.
This gull is hanging around the sailing station.
Its feet are muddy from walking around in the marsh during low tide.
It's very muddy going.
Most of the small shorebirds have long beaks to probe in the mud for things to eat.
Avocets sweep the flattened tips of their up-curved, slender bills from side to side through the mud rather than poke down into it.
Mudflats at low tide.
It is so hazy it is virtually impossible to discern the East Bay Hills across the Bay.
Omnipresent power lines.
Sailing station floating dock.
Black phoebe.
Free calls!
Oh, wait . . . never mind . . .
Looking up the slough.
Do Not Enter.
A large flock of gulls comes in to land in the slough.
There is chaos briefly as they all take flight and settle back down again.
A marsh gumplant blossom is a luminous vessel backlit by the sun.
A pair of avocets feed in the lagoon across the levee from the preserve's Nature Interpretive Center.
Turkey vulture.
A fenced boardwalk goes out into the marshes to access the high-tension power lines for maintenance and repair.
A snowy egret perches for a moment on the boardwalk for people leading from the Interpretive Center out across the marsh to the Bay.
Two views of the Bay.
Looking up into the eaves of the Interpretive Center, we see the abandoned mud nests of the cliff swallows that raised their young there earlier in the year. They have already left for their long migration to South America.
The dowitcher has a very long, sturdy bill it uses to probe deeply in the mud. The sensitive tip of the upper bill is movable, to be able to grasp food by opening just the tip in thick mud.
At the migratory bird sanctuary near the duck pond, pigeons hang out, and a Muscovy duck and a mallard hen take a nap.
An aberrant pot of some sort sits in the shallows of the lagoon.
I'll bet it called a kettle black.
A view of the duck pond, with the migratory bird sanctuary in the background.
Some kind of infall structure near the shore of the duck pond.
And what's a duck pond without ducks?
Itchy mallard is itchy.
♪♫♪ You put your left foot in, you put your left foot out . . . ♪♫♪
Grooming mallard is well-groomed.
A small plane comes in for a landing at Palo Alto Municipal Airport at the edge of the marsh.
A northern harrier keeps a wary eye on me as I approach to get a pic.
Oops, too close.
It looks like someone really didn't like this edumacational sign.
I'm sure Dennis was a very nice person, but his memorial bench plaque sounds a just a tad creepy.
Fortunately there are many other benches along the trail on which to rest.
A fat bumblebee visit a gumplant blossom
.