Driftwood shelter

 

 

Semipalmated Plovers (Charadrius semipalmatus) among driftwood, 7 October 2023.

Taking off

 

 

A young Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter cooperii) taking off after hunting for sparrows in a shrub, 7 October 2023.

Offshore spouts

  

A distant shot, but I wanted to record that there have been good numbers of Humpback Whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) off Bodega Head this week -- often 6-8 spouts or more visible across the horizon at any one time.  (And lots of pelican diving, too!)

Silky skies

  

Silk!  After hearing about Eric's dragonfly and butterfly observations last night, I was scanning the San Francisco Chronicle headlines and noticed an unusual one -- something like "Baby spiders are falling from the sky..."  

Young spiders drift on silk threads to disperse to new areas, and there were reports from the Bay Area of clumps of silk both in the sky and on the ground.   I wondered if they were in Sonoma County, too, so while eating lunch today we kept an eye out and sure enough, we saw several clumps of silk crossing our view.

Then I went out to try to photograph a few for the record and these are the results.  Often there was a larger, denser clump of silk at the end of a very narrow thread-like strand:

 

 

I was photographing these bundles of silk almost directly overhead and they were fairly high up, so I couldn't always see the entire streamer at the time.  I was impressed to see how long some of them were when I started to review the photos.  Look carefully to see how far the slender threads extend from the clump:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many of the concentrated clumps of silk were about half the size of my palm.  And I estimate the lengths of the strands in these photos range from ~2 feet (0.5 meter) to ~5 feet (1.5 meters) long.  

 

I wondered if you could find a spider in the silk, so I walked briefly to check for silk on nearby vegetation.  I found several, but I didn't have any luck finding a spider.

I'm curious about why these silk balloons are so prominent this year.  Is it a certain species of spider?  Or are spiders producing more silk this year for some reason?  Or are there just more of them this year so they are more noticeable?  Or was it something about the weather that caused larger clumps of silk to form?  Hmmphhh!

Dragonfly movement at the coast

 

 

I was away at a meeting this week, but Eric was in Bodega Bay and observed a significant movement of dragonflies (and some butterflies) along the coast today (4 October 2023).  He caught and photographed a couple of them to document which species were involved.

 

Pictured above is a male Variegated Meadowhawk (Sympetrum corruptum).  Below is an example of a female:

 

 

 

Eric counted ~40 dragonflies/minute flying south along the outer coast of Bodega Head at ~10:45 a.m.  I was curious about the weather conditions at the time.  I knew it had been warm, but I didn't know how warm!

 

There are several weather stations on Bodega Head.  I checked the first and didn't believe my eyes because it had peaked at ~87°F (~30°C) today.  So I checked a second and it also read ~87°F!  Then to be sure I checked a third (and the one I generally consider the most accurate) and it peaked at ~85°F (~29°C).  Amazing!  Air temperatures that high are quite rare on Bodega Head.

 

There was also an unusual spike in air temperature this morning.  It started out in the 50s this morning, but then rose steadily to 70°F at 10 a.m. and continued to rise significantly until reaching ~85°F at noontime.  Then it plummeted back to ~70°F for the rest of the afternoon.  (The wind direction also changed with the temperature pattern, from north/northeast then veering to west.)

 

More hot temperatures are expected tomorrow, so it'll be interesting to see if there are more movements of insects at the coast.

In time

  

We arrived home too late for the rain shower, but in time for a rainbow to our south.  Photographed 30 September 2023.  Happy for a little rain!

Fall phalarope

  

  Juvenile Red-necked Phalarope (Phalaropus lobatus) in Bodega Bay on 28 September 2023.