Yellow Douglas Fir Borer

 

"Busy" is not the word. I'm absolutely swamped with creatures standing in line to have their picture taken. It's a scene right out of images we have seen of the animals waiting to get on Noah's Ark.

 

Today's winner is a Yellow Douglas Fir Borer. I took him/her first because of a sob-story about a sick mother back at the old fir tree.

 

Moai

Yesterday, hiking along the Earthquake Trail in Point Reyes, Bob T and I ran across this human head carved from rock. To say that we were taken aback would be an understatement. I rushed home and,  doing some research on the Internet, was able to figure out the origin of the head. All that remains to be researched is how the head got from the Easter Islands to the San Andreas Fault in Point Reyes. Could the 1906 quake, which measured 7.8 on the Richter Scale, have transported the sculpture half way across the world? Hard to imagine, but if you have a better explanation, let me know.

 

 

 

Moai (or mo'ai) (IPA: /ˈmoʊ.аɪ/) are monolithic human figures carved from rock on the Polynesian island of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) between 1250 and 1500 CE. Nearly half are still at Rano Raraku, the main Moai quarry, but hundreds were transported from there and set on stone platforms called Ahu around the island's perimeter. Almost all Moai have overly large heads three-fifths the size of their bodies. The Moai are chiefly the 'living faces' (aringa ora) of deified ancestors.

 

Woodpecker

 

Male Acorn Woodpecker from this morning's hike at Point Reyes with Bob Towler.

 

Artsy-Abstract

 

Always trying to please, I am bowing to the entreaties of the few conservative, straight-laced, followers among you, and am officially renaming the Artsy-Xxxxxx category. The new name shall be "Artsy-Abstract".

 

Today's Artsy-Abstract depicts some sun-dried kelp and its shadow created by yesterday's setting sun. A teenie weenie bit of Photoshop also happened along. I take solace from the fact, that Anselm Adams (not my favorite photographer) spent hours upon hours fiddling in his darkroom.

 

Actually (as Albee would say), I shouldn't even tell you what the picture depicts. I prefer to let it be judged on its own merits.

 

 

Yesterday I had the pleasure of taking pix of the North American Open Water Rowing Championship, and I was privileged to follow the race from aboard a little boat. And that's how I got this picture of a Brown Pelican. Most of the Pelicans we see in Marin are American White Pelicans, while Brown Pelicans are unusual. It's the other way round in the Marina, on the San Francisco side.

 

Not My Car!

 

That's right ~ it's not my car! But it is the rear window of a car that's been sitting near Dunphy Park in Sausalito for years.

 

St. Vincent's

I normally shy away from postcard-style pictures and I'm not sure why I made an exception with St. Vincent's Church in San Rafael. Perhaps the reason is that I happened upon a good angle, or perhaps the light was just right.

 

Whatever the case, here's what I found when I got home ~ St. Vincent's, an Italian Renaissance Mission-style church, was constructed in 1855 and is designated a California historical landmark. The state's oldest home for dependent children, the school began as an orphanage during the Gold Rush. St. Vincent's now provides residential care to boys ages seven to 17 with serious emotional and educational problems.

 

A few months ago the following information ran in the Marin Independent Journal. "By a one-vote margin, the Marin Board of Supervisors tentatively agreed to allow more housing than the 221 units county planning commissioners recommended for the 1,230 acres of north San Rafael ranchland owned by St. Vincent's School for Boys and the Silveira family".

 

To be truthful, I don't know whether I have my facts right, and may be mixing apples and oranges. What I do know is that Tamalpa Runners used to have an annual Sunday race starting near the church. And, rather than starting at 9 AM, the race would start at precisely 9:18 (I think), in order to give the parishioners time to leave the premises after the service!

 

Deer

 

I told him that his picture would come out blurry if he didn't stop for a moment, but did he listen? Of course not! Typical pig-headed macho guy! But I still like the shot. Taken on the Bear Valley Trail in Point Reyes last Tuesday.

 

Bee

 

I hope that, with this picture, I'll get insects out of my mind for a few days and move on to bigger things. Do note the yellow pollen on the bee's body. No other comments on today's presentation!

 

But I do want to tell you that I woke up at 3 o'clock this morning with yesterday's caterpillar before my eyes. And suddenly I knew that, of course, it was an inch-worm! Duh! Then I was able to go back to sleep.

 

This morning I consulted the Internet! Inchworms are the name for the larvae of moths of the family Geometridae. Also called measuring worms, spanworms, and loopers, they lack appendages in the middle portion of their body, causing them to have a characteristic looping gait, which gives them the name.

 

Caterpillar

 

This little gal/guy literally dropped down from the sky! Bob T noticed her/him dangling on a thread from a branch at least thirty feet above our heads on the Bear Valley Trail this morning. How a caterpillar, less than 1 cm in length, produce enough thread for a drop like that, is beyond me. We gently usher the little gal/guy onto a leaf, and this is when she/he began these gyrations for the camera. Once again my guidebooks left me in the lurch. And I don't even know whether caterpillars are gender-specific.