October 27, 2005 – menagerie 2

There was no croak when this heron opened up - a yawn?.

You don't always need to see the animal to know it was there. This set of raccoon tracks was on the small beach at the southwest end of the footbridge. Notice that there's a parallel set of tracks, washed out by a previous tide.

A school of about a dozen mullet were patroling the shore of Whistlestop lagoon. They will frequently leap clear of the water (as one did this day), but you'd have to be mighty lucky to get a photo of that.

OK, now an action sequence. We've noted before that Brown Pelicans sometimes use a modified diving technique when hunting in the shallow waters of the slough.

Rather than dive straight down from a height, they cruise a few feet above the water, then dive at a shallow angle.

Three down, three to go.

The last three go in, with one more in the foreground.


A nice stretch after a vigorous hunt.

Another bluet damselfly. It's a carnivore, so it's just using the pickleweed for a perch. Damselflies hunt by "sallying," as phoebes do. They sit on a perch and wait to spot their prey, sally forth to grab it, then return to their perch to devour it. Dragonflies, on the other hand, hunt by "hawking," often patrolling a beat.

Another nudibranch collected by Education Coordinator Kenton Parker and brought to the lab for observation. Actual size: a little more than half an inch long.

A Bewick's Wren strikes a sleek pose by the granary trees.

It's all about variety, today – a Checkerspot takes lunch at a California Aster.

Finally, a nice look at a Forster's Tern in its winter plumage. Busy day.