Sun 25 Aug 2013

A visit from Pepé Le Pew

Posted by DavidMitchell under West Marin nature, Wildlife
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Skunks are crepuscular, which means they hunt at twilight and daybreak, and last Wednesday as the sun was going down, a lone skunk showed up just outside Mitchell cabin. Except during the mating season, skunks are solitary critters, so its being alone was no surprise. The surprise was seeing one at all. It had been years since a skunk had been out in the open around the cabin, and it was sort of a treat to see one despite skunks’ stinking reputation.

It’s not unusual to smell a skunk hereabouts, of course; this is the countryside. And occasionally I’ll spot a dead skunk on Highway 1. Skunks have terrible eyesight and can see only about 10 feet, which is why they are so vulnerable on roadways.

A skunk on the hunt.

Skunks are omnivorous. They eat plants, grasses, and berries at this time of year, as well as insects, earthworms, salamanders, frogs, lizards, carrion, and birds’ eggs whenever they can find them.

They are a major predator of honeybees because their thick fur protects them from stings when they attack hives to eat bees, not honey.

This skunk seemed to be looking for small rodents, such as moles or voles, and periodically dug furiously in various holes it came across. The creature’s strong, short legs and long front claws are ideal for burrowing.

Skunks mate in the early spring and their young are born about two months later. Blind and deaf when first born, kits open their eyes after three weeks and are weaned in about two months. The kits stay with their mother for about a year, which is a long time for a skunk. Their typical lifespan in the wild is only three to six years.

At times the skunk was almost vertical as it dug into the ground. It couldn’t see me when it was in this position, but I wasn’t about to pull its tail.

Skunks produce their foul-smelling fluid in anal scent glands to drive off predators, of course, and they can spray it up to 10 feet with accuracy.

Skunks are sparing with their spray, however, for they have only enough for about half a dozen blasts, and it takes roughly 10 days to rebuild their supply. So rather than relying on repeated spraying to drive off predators, they count on their distinctive black and white coloring to act as a warning. Nonetheless, if a skunk raises its tail, stamps its feet, and hisses, back off quickly, for it is about to spray.

Point Reyes Station naturalist Jules Evens writes in The Natural History of the Point Reyes Peninsula that skunks are sometimes eaten by mountain lions. I wonder how cougars avoid being sprayed. Great horned owls also eat skunks, but that’s easier to understand since the owls have a very poor sense of smell.

Skunk meandering at sunset.

So what do you do if you, your dog, or your cat gets sprayed? Despite the old wives’ tale, tomato juice will not eliminate the smell. It merely cloaks it slightly. Humans and pets both need thorough baths to get rid of the stench.

Bathing dogs is not always easy, and bathing cats can be comparable to the battle for Damascus. Moreover, you probably will need special pet shampoos and soaps, which are usually available only from veterinarians.

It is common for skunks to dig holes in backyards and lawns, much to the annoyance of some homeowners.

In the mid-1990s, the Marin Major Crimes Taskforce raided a marijuana patch on the south side of the Point Reyes-Petaluma Road about a mile east of Highway 1. Pot is reputed to have a skunk-like smell, and soon after the raid, I began noticing a skunky smell whenever I drove through the area. Evidently there was a second patch somewhere in the vicinity.

Almost two weeks went by before I spotted a dead skunk in a ditch beside the road and figured out where the smell was coming from. It made me wonder how often cops prepare for pot raids but find only dead skunks.

In the Deep South, skunks are often referred to as polecats while in Latin America they are called zorrillos (meaning little foxes).

Skunks have suffered from bad press for centuries. Even Charles Darwin dismissed skunks as “odious animals” in The Voyage of the Beagle published in 1839. However, when Looney Tunes in 1945 debuted a Parisian skunk named Pepé Le Pew, the creature’s reputation began to evolve from stinky to comic. Click here for a bit of post-war nostalgia.

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Tue 20 Aug 2013

A young leviathan dies at Stinson Beach

Posted by DavidMitchell under West Marin Citizen, West Marin nature, Wildlife
[2] Comments

Struggling to breathe, a juvenile fin whale washed ashore at Stinson Beach early Monday. The 42-foot-long male weighed roughly 11 tons.

The whale appeared to have taken a beating thrashing around in shallow water. There was also trauma to its right side, which could have come from colliding with a ship. That’s been known to happen here. The fin whale’s only natural enemy is the killer whale (i.e. orca). Photos by Lynn Axelrod

The California Marine Mammal Center based on the Marin Headlands handled the scientific aspects of the death. After a volunteer at 7 a.m. reported a beached whale was dying, the center dispatched a veterinary team to investigate.

The National Park Service had managed to turn the whale so that it was headed back out to sea, but the whale was already dead by the time the veterinary team arrived around 9 a.m.

After the whale died, a Park Service lifeguard tied a cord around the whale’s tail so that it could be dragged onto the beach with a backhoe.

The whale proved to be too heavy, however, and the line snapped the first time the Park Service tried to pull the corpse ashore.

“The veterinary team has since performed a necropsy (animal autopsy) to try to determine the cause of death,” the center reported later in the day. “Once the whale was rolled over, the Marine Mammal Center’s director of veterinary science, Dr. Shawn Johnson, discovered trauma to the sternum area and internal hemorrhaging around the heart.

“In addition, air [bubbles were] present in the subcutaneous tissue, indicative of trauma.” However, the center added, “There were no broken bones discovered.”

The severe trauma to the whale’s right side was found upon further examination.

Numerous radio stations, several television crews, and a number of newspaper reporters and photographers massed on the beach to cover the fin whale’s death. It was the second in a year in West Marin waters. A 47-foot-long fin whale washed ashore at Point Reyes last year after having been struck by a ship.

“Fin whales are the second largest marine mammal on earth, next to blue whales, and belong to the family of baleen whales,” the Marine Mammal Center wrote on its website.

Unfortunately, fin whales are on the federal list of endangered species, and the death of this young leviathan upset many observers. It brought tears to the eyes of my partner, Lynn Axelrod, who covered the sad event for The West Marin Citizen.

The young victim with the town of Stinson Beach in the background.

Even before it began to decay, the whale’s corpse was giving the area a fishy odor. After the whale was cut up by Mammal Center staff, the Park Service buried it eight feet deep further up the beach. Microbes in the sand will cause the fat and tissue to decompose but leave the bones intact.

This was only the latest of many whale burials at the beach. Some 31 whales have become stranded on Stinson Beach in the past 34 years, and even in death they are covered by the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Unless one has a permit, it is illegal to disturb the bones.

The Marine Mammal Center on Tuesday reported, “All we can determine at this stage is that the animal appears to have suffered blunt trauma which either caused, or likely contributed to, its death.

“The cause of that trauma is unknown at this time. Additional testing [on blubber from the whale] will potentially reveal other findings.”

 

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Sun 11 Aug 2013

Images of many types of dogs at Inverness Fair

Posted by DavidMitchell under Inverness
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Are you going to Inverness Fair, Sparsely Sage And Timely? Remember me to Juan who works there, he once was a good friend of mine.

The annual Inverness Fair was held Saturday next to the firehouse. At left, oysters from British Columbia served on the half shell were sold as a benefit for the Inverness Foundation. The group maintains the Jack Mason Museum of West Marin History. The Inverness Association is the operational arm of the organization.

Big woofers. The band High Tide Collective from Bolinas was hit with fairgoers, playing a mix of rock ‘n’ roll and up-tempo blues.

The dancing dog. At times throughout the afternoon, folks danced to the band’s music, including a couple who danced with their dog. Watching with rapt attention were a little girl and another dog.

Doggone impressive. One of those selling crafts was Roger Sierra, formerly of West Marin and now living in Petaluma. Among his items for sale were two Guatemalan-made Pipes of Pan. Sierra gave an impromptu demonstration of the instruments’ flute-like sound by picking one up and playing along with the band.

Fresh from holding its own Far West Fest two weeks earlier in Point Reyes Station, KWMR community radio took part in the Inverness Fair, selling t-shirts and giving out bumper stickers.

Waterdogs. Rebecca Porrata (left) and Kate Levinson (right) were among the women selling tacos as a benefit for the Tomales Bay Waterdogs. The program teaches youngsters living around the bay the vital skill of swimming.

Hotdogs. Katherine Landreth enjoys a hotdog sold as a benefit for the Youth Sailing program based at the Inverness Yacht Club.

Inverness Garden Club held its annual plant sale. The club maintains plantings on the median of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard through downtown, at Inverness’ aptly named Plant Park, at the Gables (which houses the Jack Mason Museum and Inverness Library), at the Point Reyes Station Post Office, and at the Point Reyes Station Library.

A colorful duo sold the raffle tickets for the Dance Palace’s annual Duck Derby, a fundraiser for the community center in Point Reyes Station. During the derby, a flock of numbered rubber ducks floats down Papermill Creek, with the first duck to reach the finish line at White House Pool winning. This year’s derby will be held from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 22.

No doggerel here. Outside the Inverness Library, used books were sold as a benefit for the Marin County Free Library system. The books of rhyme were mostly fine, and none was doggerel.

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Sun 4 Aug 2013

First the grim news, then the gay

Posted by DavidMitchell under General News, Marin County
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It’s been a particularly good week to live in Marin, where the news was mostly positive, rather than in certain other parts of California, where the news too often was grim. Consider the following:

1. On Thursday, a 36-year-man, who had been teaching at O.B. Whaley Elementary School in San Jose, was found guilty on five counts of lewd and lascivious behavior with five second-grade girls between 2010 and 2012. The victims, who were 7 to 8 years old, testified teacher Craig Chandler had taken them to a locked room during recess, blindfolded them, and then made them perform oral sex on him. Chandler now faces 75 years to life in prison.

2. On Friday, a 33-year-old Catholic priest from Sacramento, the Rev. Uriel Ojeda, was sentenced to eight years in prison for molesting a 13-year-old girl while he was an overnight guest in her parents’ house.

3. Also on Friday, Los Angeles Police arrested Scott Hounsell, who until June 15 was the executive director of the Los Angeles County Republican Party. Hounsell is charged with sexting a 16-year-old girl. Ironically, the GOP leader in May had publicly snickered, “is it just me, or does every Weiner headline for the NY Mayor’s race seem like an intentional dirty pun?” (At least none of the females Democratic candidate Anthony Weiner has been sexting is underage.)

Tragic underestimate. (AP Photo/The Bakersfield Californian, by Autumn Parry)

4. At 6 a.m. Saturday, the demolition of an old PG&E power plant in Bakersfield sent shards of metal flying more than 1,000 feet. The shrapnel cut off a 43-year-old Bakersfield man’s leg and caused major injuries to his other leg. Another two people, who suffered lesser injuries, as well as two cars were likewise struck in a Lowe’s parking lot. The 1,000-foot safety zone was too small for blowing up a steel structure, an outside demolition expert later told The Bakersfield Californian. “Cleveland Wrecking Co. of Covina was the prime contractor,” the newspaper reported. “Subcontractor Alpha Demolition hired Demtech Inc. to take down the structures.”

5. At 8 p.m. Saturday, a 38-year-old motorist drove down the paved boardwalk at Venice Beach at high speed and deliberately struck 17 people (click here for video). A 32-year-old Italian tourist on her honeymoon died while 16 other people received injuries ranging from minor to major. The driver, Nathan Campbell, drove off but turned himself in to Santa Monica police two hours later. His motive remains unknown.

6. On Monday, a 30-year-old sheriff’s deputy from Orange County will be arraigned for allegedly pepper spraying a 19 year old’s pizza after another officer stopped the teen for a traffic violation. “[Deputy Juan] Tavera is accused of spotting a pizza on the back seat of the victim’s car and then pepper spraying it without the teen noticing,” The Los Angeles Times reported. “Later at home, the victim shared the pizza with four friends, leading all five to experience physical discomfort.” The incident occurred last September, and the sheriff’s office spent the last 10 months investigating the alleged assault.

Gayer news. These two headlines ran on successive pages in Tuesday’s San Francisco Chronicle, on the last page of the B section and on the first page of the C section. Was it the “rose-colored view” provided by local dykes that got Marin County Republicans to support marriage equality?

San Francisco standup comic Marilyn Pittman, who performs a risque show called “Ask a Lesbian” (click here for video), visited Mitchell cabin in June, treating Lynn and me, as well as our friends, to a sampling of her brash humor.

In some sketches, Marilyn describes herself as a “dyke,” so I sent her a copy of these headlines. Unfortunately, the “Dykes” refers to Sonny Dykes, the new head football coach at UC Berkeley.

All the same, it was a very good week for the struggle against homophobia. From the GOP in Marin County, to Vatican City, to California’s Central Valley farmlands, tolerance of differing sexual orientations is growing.

While being interviewed by the press a week ago, Pope Francis remarked, “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” Later that day, The Bakersfield Californian did a spot check of Catholics leaving mass at St. Francis of Assisi near the city and found the people it interviewed overwhelming in agreement with the pope.

“God created us as equals, and as Catholics we believe in welcoming anyone into our church, so it’s excellent to hear that he wasn’t afraid to say it verbally for the whole world to hear,” said one of the people interviewed, Lupe Galindo, 66.

So that’s a roundup of California new, good, bad, and off color, during the past week. In closing I’ll return to the aforementioned comic, Marilyn Pittman, because a couple of her sketches remind me of the old limerick: “A gay in a bar in Khartoum/ Asked a lesbian up to his room./ But they argued all night/ Over who had the right/ To do what/ And with which/ And to whom.”

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Mon 29 Jul 2013

Don’t believe everything you read; newspapers will survive

Posted by DavidMitchell under General News, The Point Reyes Light Newspaper, West Marin Citizen
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During the 27 years I edited and published The Point Reyes Light, I belonged to a variety of newspaper associations, among them: the San Francisco Press Club; the California Newspaper Publishers Association (CNPA); the National Newspaper Association (NNA); and the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors (ISWNE).

Since retiring at the end of 2005, however, the only membership I’ve maintained is in ISWNE. The society’s purpose, to quote our website, “is to help those involved in the weekly press to improve standards of editorial writing and news reporting and to encourage strong, independent editorial voices.”

Moreover, the society really is international notwithstanding its being based in the American heartland at Missouri Southern State University in Joplin. Three or four years ago, ISWNE listed the locations of its members’ newspapers, and I was surprised to see there were more in Alberta than California.

ISWNE’s annual conferences are often held abroad: Calgary, Alberta, 1994; London, Edinburgh, Cardiff & Dublin, 1995; Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1999; Victoria, British Columbia, 2000; Galway, Ireland, 2003; Edmonton & Fort McMurray, Alberta, 2005; Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, 2009; Coventry, England, 2011. In 2016, the group will head to Australia.

Postings from this blog are occasionally republished in the ISWNE newsletter.

Whether they’re in the US or abroad, most ISWNE members edit community weeklies. One of the more active members, who happens to be particularly savvy about community newspapers in the UK, is Jeremy Condliffe, who edits The Congleton Chronicle in Congleton, Cheshire, England. Perhaps these international editors merely have small-town common sense, but their comments in ISWNE’s publications and on its email hotline reflect a world of wisdom.

Why am I telling you all this? As a member of ISWNE, I receive its quarterly journal, Grassroots Editor, plus its monthly newsletter (above). I also read the bimonthly Columbia Journalism Review (below), which is published at Columbia University in New York City. The difference between New York’s and Joplin’s assessments of the state of newspapers is fascinating.

 

 


The July-August issue of CJR contains a review of The Wired City: Reimagining Journalism and Civic Life in the Post-Newspaper Age.

The author, Dan Kennedy, an assistant professor of journalism at Northeastern University, apparently imagines a day when nonprofit websites will replace many newspapers.

Post-Newspaper Age? The impression that newspapers in general are fading away has gained credence mostly from being so oft repeated.

It’s true that several well-known newspapers such as The Honolulu Advertiser and The Rocky Mountain News have folded in the last few years. Several big city dailies such as the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the Detroit News, and the Detroit Free Press have cut back to three days a week. The Christian Science Monitor has had to drop its print edition and publish only online. We’ve all heard the story. It’s been discussed on CBS’s 60 Minutes.

In contrast, the spring issue of Grassroots Editor headlines a spot-check of far-flung weeklies, “Despite predictions of their pending demise, community newspapers are alive and well in: Montana, Bahamas, California, Ireland, Missouri, North Dakota, Atlantic Canada.”

In that issue, the editor of The Winters Express in Yolo County, Debra DeAngelo, commented on a conversation she’d had with CNPA’s director of affiliate relations, Joe Wirt.

“He explained that he’s visiting small Northern California newspapers to see what it’s really like in our world rather than assuming that we’re all in a rush to ditch print publication for online formats and iPhone apps.

“Apparently, the good folks at CNPA noticed that, wait a minute, not every small paper is dying a slow, choking death. Many are surviving, just as they are, despite years of economic stagnation and the explosion of online technology….

“People still want to read the city council stories on paper rather than watch them on cable, likely because waiting a week for the story is less painful than sitting through a meeting.”

Steve Andrist, executive director of the North Dakota Newspaper Association, put it more bluntly: “Those people who say newspapers are dead or irrelevant or dinosaurs — they’re still reading newspapers.” Nor is optimism about the future of newspapers unique to supposedly old-fashioned editors at county weeklies.

Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. holding company, is similarly optimistic about the future of bigger newspapers. And Buffett has amassed a personal fortune of $54 billion by knowing when a good business is undervalued.

In the past 19 months, Berkshire Hathaway has spent $344 million acquiring 28 daily newspapers. The company has stressed it doesn’t intend to “flip” (resell) any of these papers but instead plans to be their long-term owner.

In 2011, Buffett (left) was ranked the third richest man in the world. In 2008, he was the richest. He has repeatedly said the US under-taxes the rich and endorsed President Obama’s reelection.

It’s worth noting that Buffett does not interfere with his newspapers’ editorial policies. In a letter to shareholders, he wrote, “I voted for Obama; of our 12 dailies that endorsed a presidential candidate, 10 opted for Romney.”

Buffett also told shareholders why newspapers can survive regardless of widespread lamentations about their future:

“Newspapers continue to reign supreme,” he wrote, “in the delivery of local news. If you want to know what’s going on in your town, whether the news is about the mayor or taxes or high school football, there is no substitute for a local newspaper that is doing its job.

“A reader’s eyes may glaze over after they take in a couple of paragraphs about Canadian tariffs or political developments in Pakistan; a story about the reader himself or his neighbors will be read to the end. Wherever there is a pervasive sense of community, a paper that serves the special informational needs of that community will remain indispensable to a significant portion of its residents.”

Buffett doesn’t dispute the need for daily papers to include national and international news but makes explicit that what sells newspapers is good coverage of local news.

That’s just what the weekly press has been doing all along, informing readers about events in their own community. This, in turn, is why weekly newspapers aren’t about to die off.

As usual, Buffett knows what he’s talking about. The last I heard, there were fewer than 5,000 households in West Marin; nonetheless, two competing weeklies, The Point Reyes Light and The West Marin Citizen, are able to survive here thanks to their both providing intense coverage of local news.

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Mon 22 Jul 2013

Don’t Bogart that smoke detector, you roach

Posted by DavidMitchell under West Marin nature
[5] Comments

About this time every year, they show up for more than a month at Mitchell cabin where they’re as welcome as a plague of locusts. A plague they are. Locusts they are not. In fact, I don’t have a precise name for them, but I presume they arrive from the fields around the cabin.

When none of my naturalist friends had a name for them, I asked a pest-control company three years ago what to call them. The firm responded that they are some kind of “field roach” but not to worry; they’re not at all like cockroaches. However, no one at the firm had a specific name for them.

While they don’t seem to cause any physical damage to the cabin or its contents, the field roaches are forever making unpleasant appearances.

Their fondness for soap attracts a stream of roaches to the bathroom and kitchen sinks. This fellow is in the bathroom sink. Worse yet, no sooner have I squished one and washed another down the drain than still more will appear. _____________________________________________________________

Captured field roaches in a drinking glass.

The yellow and orange stripes of field roaches cause them to vaguely resemble certain ladybugs.

So why am I so quick to squish them or wash them down the drain?

Let’s put it this way. Have you ever had bugs fall into your coffee so often you had to start putting the coaster on top of the mug instead of vice versa? (In just the time it’s taken to write this posting, I squished six of them on my desk and knocked two more off the lip of a can of cherry Coke from which I was sipping.)

You may be thinking: sure, it’s probably annoying for him to have to repeatedly squish bugs on his desk or, for that matter, on the table all through dinner. But in the greater scheme of things, what’s the big deal? ___________________________________________________________

As it happens, a smoke detector is mounted near the peak of Mitchell cabin’s cathedral ceiling roughly 18 feet above the top treads of the staircase to the loft. The device is hard-wired to the house current rather than battery powered, which is good. Changing the batteries would require periodically erecting scaffolding, for there’s no place to stand a ladder below the smoke detector.

Unfortunately, bugs are programmed to climb. Up the walls. Up the ceiling. And, in the case of field roaches, up into the smoke detector. Beeeeep! The alarm is ferocious and continues until the roach moves on, which usually is fairly quick, probably because the vibrations are intense. (That’s happened more than a dozen times while I’ve been writing this.)

On occasion, however, a field roach will crawl inside the smoke detector, set it off, and then stay put. (That’s happened four times tonight.) If the racket keeps up for several minutes, I have to take action. But what to do? I’ve used a vacuum cleaner tube to try sucking the suckers out of the smoke detector, but that didn’t do much except pull off the cover (see above).

More than once I’ve tried using a leaf blower, but that didn’t work very well either. Nor did creating a moat of bug spray on the ceiling around the smoke detector. The spray didn’t hold back the field roaches, and what’s worse, the mist set off the sensor. It took more than an hour for the air inside the smoke detector to clear, forcing me to flip a breaker switch. That stopped the racket but also turned off lights here and there around the cabin.

You see why I consider this annual swarm a plague, but a plague of what? If any of you out there know the precise name of this “field roach,” please post a comment. ______________________________________________________________ Meanwhile outdoors:

By chance at the very moment I snapped a photograph of a mother raccoon and her three kits on the deck Sunday evening, Lynn tossed half a slice of bread to one of the youngsters.

The kit probably later told its siblings: “When I looked up and saw some bread flying in my direction, I briefly wondered why it kept getting bigger and bigger. Then suddenly it struck me…”

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Sun 14 Jul 2013

Wildlife relish outdoor dining at Mitchell cabin

Posted by DavidMitchell under West Marin nature, Wildlife
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Consider this a dining review for the benefit of wildlife in Point Reyes Station.

The Pine Cone Diner.

A Western gray squirrel carries a pine cone in its teeth as it jumps from limb to limb in a Monterey pine next to Mitchell cabin. West Marin’s squirrels are easy to spot but hard to photograph. In the time it takes to raise a camera to my eye, they often bound away to a new location.

Squirrels gnaw off the scales of pine cones while the cones are still green in order to eat the pine seeds underneath.

Sometime ago it became obvious from the small, well-gnawed pine cones we were finding on the walk and decks at Mitchell cabin that once again a squirrel is a habitué of one tree in particular. It’s fun to have the squirrel around, but having the remains of cones and seeds continually under foot is a nuisance.

Also found below pines at the cabin are limb tips a squirrel has gnawed off. Squirrels like to feed on pine trees’ cambium layer, which is immediately under the bark. The bark that’s softest and easiest to gnaw through is at the narrow ends of growing limbs, resulting in squirrels forever gnawing off the ends.

Were this the Yuletide, a few of the tips that fell in the past two weeks would have been big enough to serve as small Christmas trees. One was more than four feet long.

A ruby-throated hummingbird approaches a favorite flower on the deck. In normal flight, a hummingbird’s wings beat around 80 times per second, but in dives performed during courtship, they may reach 200 flaps per second.

The same hummingbird sucks nectar from a blossom.

Hummingbirds are able to hover in one place by flapping their wings in a horizontal figure 8.

A tri-colored blackbird swoops in for a landing, pushing aside other blackbirds, which are pecking birdseed off the deck railing. The tri-colored blackbird’s yellow patch on its wing distinguishes it from a red-winged blackbird.

The flash from the camera is reflected in the fox’s eyes, but the vixen appears oblivious to the burst of light. Photo by Lynn Axelrod

A gray fox heads toward the kitchen door at Mitchell cabin after dark, hoping to be handed a slice of bread. A couple of days later, Lynn saw the vixen jump onto a deck chair and then onto the railing where a mourning dove was sitting, but the bird took flight just in time to escape.

Raccoons likewise fail to react to the camera’s flashes. They too are far more interested in bread. Photo by Lynn Axelrod

An earlier posting describing how animals’ eyes react to light notes, among other things, that wildlife including birds do not usually show any reaction to sporadic flashes, even those directly in their faces,but a quick succession of flashes gets their attention.

A black tailed buck shows the grace of a dancer as he looks up from grazing next to Mitchell cabin.

This deer seems to have marked off my fields as his, for no other bucks have been coming around recently although a fawn and a couple of does are frequent visitors.

If you happen to be a squirrel, hummingbird, blackbird, fox, raccoon, or deer, Mitchell cabin offers great food at no charge. But look out for the fox if you’re smaller than she is.

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Sun 7 Jul 2013

‘The town that West Marin forgot’ celebrates its park with food, auctions, rock ‘n’ roll & grand opera

Posted by DavidMitchell under General News, Marin County
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How a sewer district came to run a park is one of those idiosyncratic West Marin stories.

Tomales Community Services District was created in 1998 to take over the town’s sewer system from North Marin Water District. At the time, Tomales already had a park, which had opened in 1982. However, after state government inspected the park’s playground equipment and found it unsafe, the district with grants and volunteer labor by townspeople took on making ambitious improvements, including, appropriately, creating the town’s first public restrooms.

Development and maintenance of the park continue to be financed by a variety of grants and fundraisers, with one of the fundraisers held this past Sunday: the third annual Party in the Park.

Giving particular importance to the fundraiser was the Dean Witter Foundation of San Francisco, which had agreed to match dollar for dollar all the money raised up to $10,000.

Having fun selling Tomales Community Park wine glasses, as well as tickets for oysters and drinks.

Among the musical groups entertaining the crowd was the Gary Foster Trio from Sebastopol. Foster (center) also happens to be the organist for Tomales Presbyterian Church. He delighted the crowd by singing rhythm and blues such as What’d I Say, rock ‘n’ roll such as Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On, and country music such as Route 66. But what dazzled many of us was his unexpectedly breaking out of this repertoire to sing a bit of grand opera, giving a masterful performance of La donna è mobile from Verdi’s Rigoletto.

Hoop dancing to most of the music (except Verdi’s) were young people led by Lilea Duran (center in red and black). Lilea teaches adult classes and performs throughout the Bay Area with her company Sunglow Hoop Dance. She also takes part in Vegetable Circus whose mission is to get kids excited about eating their vegetables and staying active in fun, creative ways. Working with schools, youth groups, and other community organizations, Vegetable Circus teaches the kids circus arts like hula hooping. Photo by Lynn Axelrod

Tomales Regional History Center raised funds by selling raffle tickets for a quilt. Alex Mitchell (center), president of the center’s board of directors, is seen here manning the ticket booth.

Sounding like he was auctioning livestock, Sam Dolcini with help from Deborah Parrish raised money by auctioning such prizes as two nights at Donna and Marc Clavaud’s Marinette Cottage in Tomales and a day at Dillon Beach for 20 people.

Among the prizes auctioned was this oil painting by Kathryn LeMieux of a cottage in the Tomales Bay hamlet of Hamlet. During the days of the North Pacific Coast narrow-gauge railway line (1875-1930), Hamlet was a whistlestop with its own post office, restaurant, oyster beds, and cannery. Notwithstanding the rail line’s closing, the homes, oyster beds, and restaurant remained in use.

Sadly, the historic village was acquired by the National Park Service in 1987, thus preventing any commercial or residential use of Hamlet’s buildings. Unoccupied, they were easy prey for burglars who stole furnishings. Hamlet had always been in the line of storms on the bay, and the Park Service made no effort to maintain the old buildings. Some collapsed, and in 2003, the Park Service took a bulldozer to those that remained.

Another prize Dolcini auctioned was this model of a Victorian home, which Barbara Taddei of Tomales created over four years working off and on. Liz Miller of Dillon Beach made the winning bid of $350. Photo by Lynn Axelrod

Tomales Volunteer Fire Department used the party as an occasion to recruit new members. The firefighters reminded me they will hold their own fundraiser, a “country breakfast” from 7:30 a.m. to noon Sunday, July 21, at Tomales Town Hall.

At a popular booth selling books, my partner Lynn found a book she’d always wanted to read, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman. The author is perhaps best known for The Guns of August, a history of the beginning of World War I.

And what festival in West Marin would be complete without face painting? Youngsters chose designs that ranged from cats to ghosts to super heroes. For some kids, getting their face painted was a highlight of the jovial afternoon.

By my lights, Tomales with a population of only 200 has a disproportionate amount of fun. The community services district website observes, “Tomales is the town that West Marin forgot, and we like it that way. A few times a year the park comes alive with activity, but most of the time the pace is pleasantly slow, the dogs friendly, and good food close at hand.”

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Mon 1 Jul 2013

Raccoon-noitering

Posted by DavidMitchell under West Marin nature, Wildlife
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Lynn had repeatedly commented on the beautiful markings framing the face of one particular female raccoon that drops by Mitchell cabin each evening for a few slices of bread.

“Our Beautiful Raccoon,” a photograph from June 8 by Lynn Axelrod.

The same raccoon with three young kits on June 26.

We’d been wondering if Ms. Raccoon was feeding a family, and last week she confirmed our suspicions when she brought a set of young triplets along with her one evening. The kits for the most part stayed close to their mother.

Mom, as would be expected, was protective of them. Here she keeps an eye on another raccoon as it approaches the cabin.

As is often the case, one of the kits is bolder than the others. While its siblings (upper left) try to stay out of sight behind the woodbox, this one joins mom out on the deck hunting for scraps of bread.

If I accidentally drop a slice of bread before I can hand it to her, mom doesn’t hesitate to reach into the kitchen for it. That, of course, is hardly surprising. My late buddy Terry Gray, who had slept near his kitchen, told me more than once of waking up to find a raccoon, which had come in through the cat door, close to his bed hunting for food.

Besides being unsettling, the raccoons were nuisances, for Terry would have to get up and scare them back out the cat door.

All this inspired me to experiment. Would a fox do the same thing? Apparently it will at least pick a slice of bread off the kitchen floor near the door. But would it come in through a cat door if we had one? My guess is that it would be more hesitant than a raccoon to enter the cabin but might do so if it were convinced there was food inside and no human around. After all, foxes are famous for raiding hen houses.

If I’m right, it certainly would be unsettling to be awakened by some fox hunting close to my bed.

One difference in their personalities I have observed is that raccoons are content with dining restaurant style, eating their food where it’s served. Foxes prefer takeout dining. Unlike their human neighbors, they protect their privacy, which is yet another reason why you’ll never find a fox with phone or Internet service.

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Sun 23 Jun 2013

Thoughts about our infatuation with animals

Posted by DavidMitchell under West Marin nature, Wildlife
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If you’ve ever been around a pile driver sinking the steel supports for a big building into the ground, you know what a racket that can be. But I bet you don’t know the origin of the term “pile driver.”

According to The Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins (Harper Collins, 1962), “In the colorful language of the West, a pile driver is a horse that, in bucking, comes down to earth with all four legs stiff.” ______________________________________________________________

No pile drivers here. (Photo by Scott Stine)

My neighbor Scott Stine and I two weeks ago hiked up a hill next to Mitchell cabin to photograph the foot of Tomales Bay and the landscape around it. The scene was stunning, but the real wonderment occurred when I sat down to pull some stickers out of my socks.

Immediately a herd of horses moseyed over, probably hoping I was carrying something to feed them. They took turns nuzzling me, sometimes two at a time, and before long one was scratching the top of its head on my back.

It was a carefree lovefest until one horse went too far and began nibbling on a cuff of my pants. I then had to play coy and tuck the leg under me. _______________________________________________________________

Mostly hidden by tall grass, a fawn grazes on another part of the hill. As the year wears on and the fawn gets larger, it strays further and further from its mother but returns to her side every few minutes.

Deer can also be dear. In Venus and Adonis, Shakespeare uses deer as a metaphor for lover. Speaking to the ancient Greek god of attractiveness and desire, Venus tells him: “I’ll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer;/ Feed where thou wilt, on mountain, or in dale:/ Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry,/ Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.” _____________________________________________________________

Two mother quail and four chicks. (Photo by Lynn Axelrod)

Another of the bard’s sensual creatures.

“For reasons not entirely clear,” The Morris Dictionary notes, “the quail has long had a reputation for what one source calls ‘an inordinately amorous disposition.’

“In Shakespeare’s time harlots were known as quails and he refers in Troilus and Cressida to Agamemnon as ‘an honest fellow enough who loves his quails.’

“A variation on this sense was common in mid-century US slang.

“A San Quentin quail referred to females below the age of legal consent. Misconduct with one such might lead to jail, San Quentin being one of the most notorious of the federal prisons.” _______________________________________________________________

A foxy lady takes a nap on our deck. (Photo by Lynn Axelrod)

In one of the Brothers Grimm fairytales, The Wedding of Mrs. Fox, a fox pretends to have died to test his wife’s fidelity. When suitors then show up, the vixen rejects them because they aren’t foxes but bears, wolves, and so forth.

Finally a fox shows up who looks like her supposedly dead husband, arrangements are made for a wedding, but her husband appears and drives off the groom and wedding guests. ____________________________________________________________

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), meanwhile, has gone the furthest in promoting a loving compassion for animals.

In its campaign against wearing animal fur, PETA has enlisted numerous celebrities to pose in the buff, albeit with their strategic parts covered.

Celebrities taking part in PETA’s campaign range from retired NBA Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman to these former Miss USA winners Alyssa Campanella, Shanna Moakler, Shandi Finnessey, and Susie Castillo.

Their message is always a version of: enjoy your own skin and don’t wear an animal’s. Who can resist entreaties such as these?

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