Tag Archives: Craig Tooley

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Mirka Knaster wrote, “Mother and kits were living under the ramp of my studio and playing like kittens, apparently without fear of me. I even had a ‘conversation’ with mama fox."

"They’re gone now but such fun when they were here.”

I must say that I'm jealous. I wish a Gray Fox family would be under one of my decks! I love Gray Fox kits so much that I picked a photo of one, taken by Craig Tooley, for our beautiful books, Mendonoma Sightings Throughout the Year.

Thanks to Mirka and Craig for allowing me to share their photos with you here.

Our short but intense heatwave is over, thank goodness. Cool breezes came with the dawn. It's just about perfect today. The Mendonoma Coast is calling you!

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Craig Tooley has been out in Nature, training his camera on a beautiful male Northern Flicker.

Northern Flickers are woodpeckers. They are often seen on the ground as they eat ants and beetles. They use their beaks to dig the insects up. Craig's photos shows the orange-red color on the flicker's wings. If you were in the eastern part of the US, the flicker's wings would show yellow. So the flickers here are Red-shafted Northern Flickers. The red feathers on this flicker's face show us he is a male.

To hear the calls of these woodpeckers, here is a link to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Northern_Flicker/sounds

Thanks to Craig for allowing me to share his photos with  you here. To see much more of Craig's nature photography, here is the link to his website: http://www.ruffimage.com

It's beautiful here on the Mendonoma Coast today. Sunny, mild with a gentle breeze - nice!

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It takes a talented photographer to get a photo of an insect while flying! Craig Tooley wrote, “I was out looking for little creatures the other day and thought this one was an interesting bee, or fly, or wispy creature. I thought you might enjoy seeing it. They move so fast, a lot of times you don't get a good look at these impressive little creatures. Where did it get those sunglasses?”

I sent Craig’s photo to entomologist Mary Lou Flint. She wrote, “It’s a Syrphid Fly, sometimes called a Hover Fly or Flower Fly because it hovers over flowers to feed on pollen and nectar. These are wonderful beneficial insects. Their larval stages are little maggots that feed on aphids and sometimes other soft-bodied insects. They can clean up an aphid infestation in a jiffy! The adults resemble bees or wasps, and this mimicry may protect them from some predators. However, as you can tell from Craig’s photo, they only have one pair of true wings, thus they are called Diptera. The rear wings have been reduced to knobs called halters. Bees and wasps have four full wings.”

I also learned these important pollinators, unlike bees and warps, do not sting!

Thanks to Craig for allowing me to share his photo with you here. To see much more of Craig's nature photography, here is the link to his website: http://www.ruffimage.com

It's sunny and breezy today!

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Betsy Anderson came across this unusual Douglas Iris a few weeks ago. I never seen an Iris with four petals.

Amy Ruegg took a look at Betsy's photo and wrote, “This Iris looks to me to be a deformed Douglas Iris with extra tepals. In horticulture, cultivating for more petals than normal in a flower is desirable. I have seen this happen in other species on occasion. I have also seen an unusual trillium with four leaves. Perhaps it’s the four leaf clover of the Iris blossom!”

Here's a look at a "normal" Douglas Iris, taken by Craig Tooley.

It's possible the warm weather we had this past winter might have prompted this anomaly. Here's a look at the Trillium Amy mentioned.

Sometimes Mother Nature is just having fun! Thanks to Betsy, Amy and Craig for allowing me to share their photos with you here.

Clouds are pouring in as another storm is headed our way. Precursor showers arrived late this afternoon. My season to date rain total is 46.60 inches. A "normal" year is 50 inches so things are looking good here on the Mendonoma Coast.

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Cliff Swallows have arrived and are busy building their nests of mud. You can see these beautiful swallows working hard at the north end of the Gualala Community Center building, along the entrance road to the post office. Cliff Swallows nest in colonies. Here is a photo Robert Scarolo took some years ago in a tunnel at The Sea Ranch.

Diane Hichwa further explains. She wrote, “Our Barn Swallows build individual nests [hidden from each other]. Tree Swallows build in cavities in trees or boxes, and may be harder to find! Violet-green Swallows use nesting boxes.” Our largest swallow, the Purple Martin, uses nesting cavities in trees that other birds have made, such as woodpeckers.

Here is the beautiful Violet-green Swallow photographed by Craig Tooley.

And there is one more swallow species that returns here in the spring. Ron Bolander wrote, “I was out photographing at Gualala Point with my  usual Saturday group of friends. We all photographed these Northern Rough-winged Swallows in this tree. It was nice to capture this image on a beautiful day in the park.” Diane tells me this type of swallow is found near a river, as they nest in the river’s banks.

All of these swallows leave our area in the late Summer or early Fall. They are insect eaters, eating over a hundred insects a day, each one of them. In the Winter there aren’t enough insects for them to survive here, so they fly to warmer climes to our south.

If you are lucky enough to have swallows build a nest under your eves or in a light fixture, as happened one year at Surf Super’s entrance doors, think of the benefits these swallows bring by keeping the insect population under control. If you are worried about the mess the baby birds make, you can take a cardboard box and cut the sides off, leaving an inch or so. Tack that up under the nest to catch the waste, and when the birds have fledged, take it down and dispose of it. Remember that migratory birds, and their nests, are protected by law.

Thanks to Robert, Craig and Ron for allowing me to share their photos with you here.