Visitors 55
Modified 22-Dec-24
Created 21-Dec-24
16 photos
Grey skies overarching Blue Oaks at Escobar Gate presage the day. A startled deer bounds out of the grassland into the protection of the oak woodland. Peace: grassland, oaks, and the flatland civilization hold their breaths under a grey sky. A distant bird in the treetop: Northern Flicker! Stressed by drought, then rain and wind, another Coast Live Oak trunk has broken. In this mast year, a depression fills with acorns. Spent grasses dominate panoramas; green shoots highlight the dirt road; Valley Oaks line the horizon. (In the panoramas, a mistletoe-bedecked Valley Oak stands at the road to the left, the site of the neighboring gallery – and the lone Valley Oak is at the road to the right.) Another treetop, another watchful bird: Acorn Woodpecker atop the lone Valley Oak. Grassland, old grasses sheltering new. Birders, happy to be out together. Valley Oak, and a third bird atop a tree: another Northern Flicker.
Dan Quinn