Cataract Canyon Waterfall, Marin County, California
Marin County has several pretty waterfalls. This is one of many falls in Cataract Canyon. They are best seen in the rainy season.
Portrait of a Coyote
I like head shots of animals, but I don’t have many because the animals are usually too far away and getting closer isn’t feasible. I spotted this coyote when it was hunting rodents about 50 to 75 yards from the road. I pulled over and started photographing it as it was “mousing.” I stayed inside my vehicle and it seemed oblivious of me. I knew that it was likely to get closer because of the contour of the land. It’s other choice was to go down a steep ravine and come up the other side. It kept working its way toward me. It came fairly close and then stopped to scratch itself. That’s when I tripped the shutter.
Kestrel Hunts in the Rain
This female kestrel has just finished a meal and is looking for another. I assume she has better places to roost when it is raining, but it had been raining for a long time and she probably needed to eat.
Bobcats Are Special
I enjoy seeing and photographing all wildlife, but some species are more special than others to me. Bobcats are one of those species, along with wolves, bears and eagles. I’ll never get tired of photographing them.
Killing Black Bears and Selling Their Gall Bladders
Recently I wrote that the elk are dropping their antlers in Point Reyes National Seashore and the Park Service is busy picking up the antlers before the antler traders find them and remove them (which is illegal). I mentioned that while bad enough, at least the antler thieves don’t kill the elk for the body parts as happens with animals such as bears, tigers and elephants. The next day I opened my local paper to learn that someone in my city, which is located not more than 30 miles from San Francisco, was arrested while poaching a black bear in the Mendocino National Forest. More black bear parts, namely a head, five paws, a penis and gall bladder, were in his freezer at home. According to the article, black bear gall bladders sell for $5,000 on the black market. A bad as these killings are, the real problem is the demand by some in the Asian community for bear and tiger parts for their supposed value as aphrodisiacs. Tigers are nearing extinction due to this demand. I wonder if there has ever been any study to support or refute this belief.
Bull Elk Near San Francisco
I photographed this bull Tule elk in the Elk Reserve at Point Reyes National Seashore a couple of weeks ago. The bulls are dropping their antlers there now. This bull may no longer have his. If elk have egos I wonder how the bulls feel when they lose their antlers?
Those of us who live in the San Francisco Bay Area and like to see wildlife are very fortunate to have Point Reyes nearby. We are certain to see Tule elk and Black-tailed deer at Point Reyes. We have a very good chance of seeing coyotes and bobcats. We can see whales off the coast and marine mammals, such as elephant seals, on the shore. We can see all sorts of bird life, including peregrine falcons. I can’t think of another large metropolitan area that has all of these wildlife species nearby.
Injured Coyote
I saw this coyote last Thursday in the Pierce Point area of Point Reyes National Seashore. Saturday he was a bit south of there. Yesterday he was at the south end of the Tomales Point Peninsula. I know it’s the same coyote because there is something wrong with his right foreleg at what would be the “wrist” for a human. It doesn’t seem to handicap him at a walking pace, but when he runs it’s obvious and slows him down. It doesn’t handicap him in feeding though from what I can see. I watched him hunt rodents last Thursday and he was having no trouble catching them. When I saw him yesterday he was feeding on something larger than a rodent.
He should have stayed around Pierce Point Ranch a little longer. Yesterday I saw a fairly fresh elk carcass there. Some turkey vultures had found it, but it didn’t look like any other scavengers had fed on it.
It also looks like there is some fur missing on this coyote’s back.
