Hiking "In" the Bay
Last weekend we took advantage of the warm (60-ish) weather Sunday afternoon for a hike "in" the San Francisco Bay. I say "in" only half jokingly because while we weren't submerged in water, it was all around us as we walked atop man-made structures.
We visited the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) in Alviso. Or maybe it's in San Jose. It's hard to tell; either way it's like the part of Silicon Valley that time forgot.
Don Edwards NWR extends from the edge of what could reasonably be called where dry land meets the bay. From there it extends out miles across levees, sloughs, marshes, and ponds. It's a great place to go to see birds, especially marsh birds; and a great place to get a different view on the Bay Area. It's so near and yet so far from the hubbub of the urban area all around it.
The boardwalk section of the park shown above is just one little bit of it. And it was closed this visit. Instead we hiked a loop across a series of levees. They were closed, too, putatively for our safety. We figured we were more able to judge safety for ourselves atop well-trod earthen berms than weathered wooden planks, so out we went. And we were joined by a few dozen fellow law breakers.
The first stretch of levees in our loop has a few small piers you can walk down onto. With the water at low tide on Sunday, it was quite a drop down onto the piers. And from down at the pier the rushes obscure all the civilization ringing the bay. You could almost believe we were far away from civilization, with only the mountains in the distance and this Great Egret joining us.
We saw lots of birds, of course. Out in the larger ponds were scads of geese and cormorants. In the smaller sloughs, like above, we saw scores of Shovelers- a kind of duck- and a few Great Egrets. I even spotted a Black-Crowned Night Heron hiding among the rushes. They are predators but they are reclusive during the day while other, bigger predators are around.
I wasn't able to photograph the night heron this trip because I didn't have my "bird shooter" lens with me. I foolishly decided to carry just one lens with my camera. I was half right in that decision; I took my mid-range zoom and didn't miss the ultra-wide I left behind. But I was half wrong because, with all the birds, I totally wished I'd had my "bird shooter" telephoto lens. BTW, this blog entry from a nearby park shows a Black-Crowned Night Heron.
While I refer to this area as the part of Silicon Valley that time forgot, not everyone has forgotten it. A few of us still know how to find it. Well, a few dozen, at least, because that's how many people were out there with us. Including the pair of bikers on a different levee, above. In the distance, to the right of those green mounds, is Google's headquarters.
BTW those train tracks in the foreground are active. We saw two trains motoring through while we were hiking. The tracks are part of the Capital Corridor service (external link) that connects San Jose to Sacramento. This stretch of the line runs rails atop levees through the bay- an unusual route for a train! I might buy tickets on the train sometime just to see these unusual views of the Bay Area.
[This entry was cross-posted from https://canyonwalker.dreamwidth.org/175341.html. Please comment there using OpenID. That's where most of the action is!]
We visited the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) in Alviso. Or maybe it's in San Jose. It's hard to tell; either way it's like the part of Silicon Valley that time forgot.
Don Edwards NWR extends from the edge of what could reasonably be called where dry land meets the bay. From there it extends out miles across levees, sloughs, marshes, and ponds. It's a great place to go to see birds, especially marsh birds; and a great place to get a different view on the Bay Area. It's so near and yet so far from the hubbub of the urban area all around it.
The boardwalk section of the park shown above is just one little bit of it. And it was closed this visit. Instead we hiked a loop across a series of levees. They were closed, too, putatively for our safety. We figured we were more able to judge safety for ourselves atop well-trod earthen berms than weathered wooden planks, so out we went. And we were joined by a few dozen fellow law breakers.
The first stretch of levees in our loop has a few small piers you can walk down onto. With the water at low tide on Sunday, it was quite a drop down onto the piers. And from down at the pier the rushes obscure all the civilization ringing the bay. You could almost believe we were far away from civilization, with only the mountains in the distance and this Great Egret joining us.
We saw lots of birds, of course. Out in the larger ponds were scads of geese and cormorants. In the smaller sloughs, like above, we saw scores of Shovelers- a kind of duck- and a few Great Egrets. I even spotted a Black-Crowned Night Heron hiding among the rushes. They are predators but they are reclusive during the day while other, bigger predators are around.
I wasn't able to photograph the night heron this trip because I didn't have my "bird shooter" lens with me. I foolishly decided to carry just one lens with my camera. I was half right in that decision; I took my mid-range zoom and didn't miss the ultra-wide I left behind. But I was half wrong because, with all the birds, I totally wished I'd had my "bird shooter" telephoto lens. BTW, this blog entry from a nearby park shows a Black-Crowned Night Heron.
While I refer to this area as the part of Silicon Valley that time forgot, not everyone has forgotten it. A few of us still know how to find it. Well, a few dozen, at least, because that's how many people were out there with us. Including the pair of bikers on a different levee, above. In the distance, to the right of those green mounds, is Google's headquarters.
BTW those train tracks in the foreground are active. We saw two trains motoring through while we were hiking. The tracks are part of the Capital Corridor service (external link) that connects San Jose to Sacramento. This stretch of the line runs rails atop levees through the bay- an unusual route for a train! I might buy tickets on the train sometime just to see these unusual views of the Bay Area.
[This entry was cross-posted from https://canyonwalker.dreamwidth.org/175341.html. Please comment there using OpenID. That's where most of the action is!]