Hiking Close to Home

My brother called me last week and said he was hiking just north of Fairfield. He asked if I wanted to go hiking the next day. These are some photos from that morning.

The hike is through the hills now covered with dry grass. Part of the landscape is oak woodland.

A dirt road traverses the property. There is plenty of signs that cattle graze this area for part of the year. We didn’t see any livestock now.

This is a view looking south. You can barely make out the wind turbines on the horizon.

We spent a lot of time near this tree trying to get photos of the ruby-crowned kinglet that was flitting around the branches.

It is a bird that doesn’t stay in any one spot long enough for a decent photo. My bird book says “Kinglets are active, nervous birds, constantly flicking their wings rapidly.” So it’s not just me and my photography skills.

I took more than a dozen photos of this one bird and ended up with these.

I don’t know how he did it, but my brother got this one.

That’s Mt. Diablo in the background and the Suisun Marsh in the middle. You can barely make out three dark shapes at the edge of the water just below the far-away hill on the far right of the photo.

This is a close-up view. The three dark shapes are large ships, part of the “mothball fleet”. in the Suisun Bay. Those are old ships that are no longer needed but were kept in reserve for years. This link discusses some of the environmental issues that resulted from letting these old ships deteriorate in place for so many years.

Another view from the hills. That’s Ginny and Dave’s dog, Daisy.

Looking southwest.

Everything is so dry now it was good to have a water tank that the dogs could reach.