Gophers' Worst Nightmare

This Heron caught four gophers in a row!

Ever wonder why fish-eating herons and egrets are often seen standing in fields? This video provides some clues. This Great Blue Heron caught and killed four gophers in a row without a miss! Two gophers were swallowed and two were left uneaten. The first gopher was quite large and took some effort and lubrication from a water puddle to swallow. Herons have been known to choke to death while trying to swallow large prey, but not this time.

I was surprised to see the heron continue to hunt and kill more gophers than it ate. I suspect that it enjoyed hunting for fun as well as for food. I filmed the heron for about 90 minutes in the late afternoon. I don’t know how many gophers the heron may have caught before I arrived at the scene.

The heron struck the gophers so hard that they appeared to die very quickly after the first blow. Gopher #4 was struck only once; and then it was quickly dropped to the ground. The heron watched it for about 15 minutes, as if to see if it moved, and then walked away without eating the dead gopher. The heron appeared to continue to hunt for more gophers as darkness fell. I got cold and went home.

I filmed this event on March 17, 2012 at Miller Knox Regional Park in Pt. Richmond, CA, along the San Francisco Bay Trail after several days of heavy rains. The gophers on this fateful day may have been more vulnerable than usual due to partial flooding of their burrows after the recent rains. I used a Panasonic GH2 camera to capture the footage.

If you have issues with gophers damaging your garden or landscape, don’t you wish you could rent a Great Blue Heron like this one for a few days?

Reflections on the Beauty of a Hunting Egret

In this footage recorded at the Miller Knox Regional Park in Point Richmond, CA, the egret happens to line-up with extraordinary lighting conditions during the magic-hour of late afternoon. Bright bands of reflected light from ripples shimmer up and down its body reminding me of the color tricks that octopus and squid display on their bodies. The shimmering beauty of this unexpected natural light show is yet another example of the many rewards and benefits of hiking and observing nature along the San Francisco Bay trail.

Blue Birds and Hair

Over the years I would occasionally spot Western Bluebirds on sunny afternoons in Miller Knox Regional Shoreline Park in Point Richmond on my frequent walks. However, I had a difficult time consistently locating them. They are small birds–about the size of a sparrow. This winter, I decided to make a concerted effort to locate them and film them. After several hikes, I found a small flock of about eight Bluebirds spending the late afternoon in an off-limits fenced in area between the Ferry Point fishing pier and the picnic area. That is where I was able to get most of the video shots for this movie.

Red Fox Along the Landfill Loop Trail in Richmond, CA.

I encountered this red fox while walking around the Landfill Loop Trail at Garbage Mountain. I was surprised to see the fox out in mid day. It appeared to be hunting. Unlike our native tree-climbing little native grey fox, which feeds primarily inland on berries and small rodents, the red fox is a larger predator that preys on ducks and shore birds, including rare and endangered rails.

Close-up of Spider Web Construction in Slow Motion

Spiders are incredible engineers. This is a slow motion and normal speed close-up video of a common garden spider building a web. I thought the web-building process was amazing before I grabbed my camera–but even more so after I slowed down the footage to 10% of normal speed! So fast and efficient is this spider as it extracts silk from its abdomen, shifts its grip on the silk fibers from claw to claw, measures distances, and creates just the right amount of tension to keep the web taught. Of great interest to me was how the spider attached the silk fiber at each junction.

Gulls Gone Wild

This is a 6.5 minute music video documenting the beauty, exuberance, and chaos of this natural history experience along the Bay Trail in Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline in Point Richmond, CA. The herring first came to Point Richmond on (or shortly before) February 4, 2011 to spawn after commercial roe fishing boats reached their limits allowing successive runs throughout the month. Harbor seals and sea lions came to eat the herring; then the gulls and diving ducks came to feast on the carpets of eggs that covered the kelp, eel grass, pier pilings, and rocks along the shore. This documentary covers about 10 days of the event.

Oysters of Pt. Richmond, CA.

Photo of Oysters near Keller Beach in Pt. Richmond, CA.

On January 1, 2011 I was delighted to find a healthy population of small oysters living on the rocks in the rocky areas between Keller Beach and the San Rafael Bridge. This area is accessible at low tide. I visited the area at minus tide which made the entire beach accessible. January is a great time for low tides. Check local tide charts for details.