Near the Mendocino Headlands Ron LeValley spotted this leucistic Black Oystercatcher. This bird survived his or her lack of camouflage to grow from a chick to this young bird.

It's not the first time a nearly white Black Oystercatcher has been born up there. Last year Roger Adamson photographed a leucistic chick.

These anomalies appear in nature, but they always seem to catch us by surprise and bring a little wonder into our lives.

Thanks to Ron and Roger for allowing me to share their photos with you here. To see much more of Ron's nature photography, or to sign up for his daily nature blog post, here is his website: http://levalleyphoto.com/home/

Smoke from the fire in Geyserville flowed up over the coast this morning. Here's a photo I took from our deck in Anchor Bay around 8 am this morning. It kind of looks like fog, but it's smoke.

The smoke has dissipated somewhat this afternoon. I hope the fires can be brought under containment soon. It's so sad.