When the light is right, it’s easy to see what a colorful fellow he really is. This is, sadly, a low-res frame from a video. What you can’t see is how slowly he rises, it was a hover combined with a liftoff. He watched the camera the whole time.

At Shoreline Park, we found this goose and wondered how it sustained such an injury. But after doing a search, I found that it has angel wing, a condition possibly caused by kindly bird lovers who feed the geese.

It was smaller than the rest of the flock, feeding in an area much less green and lush.

I was after flocks of Canada geese. The ones at the junior high have proved elusive, and on weekends, they are chased by noisy soccer players trying to regain their fields. I was thoroughly annoyed by these players when I tried to set up the tripod for a few quick shots one morning. As if they couldn’t detect that I was trying to take photos. But now I have a new understanding.

At Shoreline near the golf course, large numbers of geese were busy having their breakfast. In a short time they stopped retreating so I could get fairly close. I got lots of good footage, and it wasn’t till I got back in the car that I noticed the problem.

My shoes. My poor shoes had goose poop on the soles and up the sides, up to the shoelaces. Scraping them on the cleaner grass didn’t help much. Removing what I tracked into the car was not easy. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to play soccer on a field of this.

But now I know where the geese hang out when they’re not around here. (Thanks for the tip, Tiff!) Plus, there were brown pelicans gliding over the water, ditto egrets. A large hawk came around a bush nearby and flew along the water, used to hikers and bicyclists alike.

Next time I try this, I’ll wear boots that I can hose down afterward.

Usually around this time, the feeder is busy with birds filling up before nighttime. I suspect a hawk or two where I can’t see. The chickadees and juncos came by for a very short time this morning, but there are currently no birds out there except for a gull now and then high up. Even the raucous crows are gone. Sparky hasn’t been by his feeder for several hours.

I saw some movement in the front oak, and went to look through the viewfinder. It was a squirrel, crouched and frozen on a limb. When he finally moved, he was cautious and slow.

Very strange, the neighborhood usually sounds like a jungle with the shrieking of the crows and the constant songbird soundtrack. All I can hear is traffic.

It may not seem so cold in the Bay Area, but at 7:00 a.m., waiting outside for birds to show up at the feeder, it’s not so comfortable. Especially if you stand and stand while the chickadees dart in, grab something and take it back to their warm beds somewhere.

I’m trying to take pictures with some holiday elements, like poinsettias. The ones I bought in a hurry over the weekend succumbed quickly to wind and a lack of fullness, so that I had to keep rearranging them. It’s hard to fluff out inadequate poinsettias. Last night I went out and got some very full ones and put them to the test today.

Except they sagged and rolled around. Then I had to periodically clean up the seeds the birds disperse when they take off and land on the table. In other words, I spent a lot of time prepping. The chickadees didn’t really mind, they waited in the bushes nearby.

A few hours later, they weren’t leaving the table when I had to adjust something. One landed on a leg of the tripod as I was using it. I gave them some of the roasted grubs as a reward.

The lingering fog was lifting, but not that fast. High up on a pole, this juvenile red-shouldered hawk sat very still.

Trekking around the Baylands Park, I was out for egrets, possibly herons. Mostly I wanted to know where the Canada geese flocks go when they leave the junior high fields. This sighting was unexpected, and in the excitement at finding a hawk, I forgot a couple of things. Manual focus. Movies.

It was very intent on finding some breakfast. I could see that it was damp, and there was some sort of protrusion on its lower body, perhaps some matted feathers. When I got home and checked the photos, I discovered that the hawk either has a deformity, with claws where they shouldn’t be, and only one foot, or is holding an injured foot up high. In some photos, it appears from the shape of the leg area that there could be another foot, but it is not visible.

Despite its handicap, the bird appears well-nourished. If any reader has an explanation, I’d love to hear it.

I managed to get up early enough to catch them, the downside being that it was also start time for a soccer game in that field, so the players were chasing them away. No worries, they always come back.

Just as the afternoon slump approached, I considered the mountain of footage to go through. The juvenile hawk I’ve been hearing for two days did not choose to land in any trees in our yard. There aren’t that many shopping days till Christmas. Sigh. I sank back in my chair, and glanced out the window.

New bird. Large new bird on the table (not the feeding table) by the door. Looking in at me curiously. Woodpecker. Normally a shy bird that I catch a glimpse of now and then high up in the oak trees. Now about three feet away, looking friendly.

I had heard they would come to feeders, but maybe not so much in the Bay Area. Only one way to find out. I shall be messing with suet.

Last night after dinner, I ran some errands. When I got back, my laptop began acting strange, as in I couldn’t throw away the trash. Since I’d spent the day shooting footage, this was disturbing - there was a lot to toss. Not only that, but clicking on almost everything else didn’t work either. I was able to close down open applications.

At least I had Firefox, and doing a search on a lost finder was frustrating indeed. Most suggestions had to do with re-installs, which I didn’t want to mess with late in the evening. I was faced with calling tech support in the morning, which I also didn’t want to do since there was unfinished business on the stuff I had been working on.

I knew it had something to do with the many movies I had taken. But would I actually get my finder back if I restarted? What if I didn’t? Yes, yes, I have AppleCare. But I wanted things right so I would be set to go on everything by 6:00 a.m. Wednesday, not 8 or 9:00 a.m.

It was fine.

And of course I know I need more RAM. Which I will purchase (I know RAM is cheap) as soon as I get over how much I just spent on two 16GB memory cards. Because I found out very quickly that shooting footage eats up 4 and 8GB cards like nobody’s business.

I don’t think Sparky is quite ready to do this just yet. Such amazing footage from Russ Thompson.

There’s only one feeder at the moment. Over the weekend, I found another that is an inverted bottle-type, but the bottle has been gathering rainwater and outdoor debris for some time. Once it’s cleaned, it will be interesting to see how he reacts to it.

Yesterday I lowered the tripod, parked myself in a chair and waited to see if he would do anything different if I put the feeder on the other side of the tomato cage. I tilted the feeder so the nectar would pool to one side. When he showed up, he went to his usual side, then became frustrated at not finding his food at the usual place. He bounced around, beak down, then he did a flyby under the roof overhang, where he’s more used to finding the feeder. Eventually, he was able to get at the nectar, but not where I wanted him to be. Maybe today I’ll plug up the other holes.

An exhausting performance for the lady of his choice.

The feeding station has been in place almost a year now. Regulars are the typical visitors to backyard feeders: chickadees, dark-eyed juncos, California towhees, titmouse, and occasionally, wrens. The hummingbird feeder is dominated by Sparky, a fierce but somewhat friendly fellow. On the periphery are woodpeckers, crows, blue jays, robins, cedar waxwings (at berry time), sparrows and a couple of lovely but as yet unidentified visitors. They don’t partake from the feeder.

Back in the spring, there were lively young chickadees that took a keen interest whenever I watered the raised vegetable beds. I assumed they were juveniles from their lack of grace when landing on branches. They took to hanging out in either the plum tree or the pyracantha bush next to it. One day I aimed the hose spray upward.

They went crazy. Such a racket, and before I knew it, there were ten or so, all calling happily to each other, shaking out their wings, holding their heads upward. Clearly this was a great treat. After a few days, a wren or two would show up, and sometimes, a hummingbird. At this point, there was no hummingbird feeder, but they visited the fuchsia plants and Mexican sage regularly.

I wanted a video of this so that family members wouldn’t think I had gone off the deep end. But before I knew it, the young chickadees were gone. Vanished. On to greener territories perhaps. The whole summer went by without a single one noticing when I watered. If I pointed the spray at the remaining chickadees, they flew away.

Today, I went out to check on the green beans and the last tomato plants that are still producing. More on those another time. Was that a happy chickadee sound? Yes, and several were answering. There was the buzz of a giant bee, which I suspected was Sparky. I sprayed up into the pyracantha, which needs pruning very badly. One by one, they flew into the bush, which is more like a tree. Even the juncos were there, but more subdued than the rest, who had their wings out, heads up, shaking their feathers. Giant bee buzz again. There he was, in the middle, little wings out and chirping away, bobbing up and down, my resident hummer.

Will they do this for at least another week? Temps are warm, in the 70s. I must figure out the movie function on the camera. I’m thinking this is at least a 2-man project.

I set my clock just before bedtime last night, so I was pretty sure it was too early to get up. But the sound of traffic was not what it should have been well before 6:00 a.m. Loud. Insistent. Monday morning, and the commute is on. But, wait a minute. Or hour.

How many of you showed up way too early? Especially since fall is the one time we get an extra hour of sleep.