There was an over-wintering avian visitor from the far north spending its time on the rocks near the path way of Heron’s Head Park in the south eastern portion of San Francisco. I figured I better make way across the 6.2 miles of the city to see this sandpiper before it headed back up north.

Heron’s Head Park, named because it looks like a great blue heron’s head from the air, juts out into the San Francisco Bay just north of Hunter’s Point (the formal naval shipyard). The parks is a human made landscape that was once going to be an anchor point to a southern bay bridge that was never built. This area has been cleaned up by the Port of San Francisco and is now a 22 acre park that represents on of the few wetlands that still exists in the city and county of San Francisco.

So I figured I’d head east, across town, to see a rock sandpiper (Calidris ptilocnemis) before it really started to rain and before the bird relocated ahead of a December winter storm.

Like it’s name implies, a rock sandpiper, is found on rocks. And Heron’s Head Park provides many rocks for this sandpiper to forage and roost. Now I had to find the piper amongst the rock before the wind and rain made observation a struggle.

I head out on the path to the point noting the large numbers of double-crested cormorants flying from the north, joining a large raft of birds that was growing to the waters of the southwest.

As I headed out to the point, the surge was making whitewater on the southern side of the rock-levy. The first sandpipers I spotted was four least sandpipers on the southern side. This was a good sign because the the northern visitor was associating with least sandpipers. But the rock was nowhere to be seen.

I retraced my steps to the west and I spotted a spotted sandpiper bobbing on a rock to my right. This was a nice consolation.

I turned back to the east and out to the point for one last look for the rock sandpiper. That’s when I saw a larger peep slowly making its way over the rocks to the north. I didn’t need binoculars to identify this bird as I was able to stand right next to it. As Pete Dunne notes, “A tame bird that allows close approach. ”

The rock sandpiper in it’s desired habitat, rocks!

It’s not every day that a narwhal tusk is mentioned in a news story. Perhaps a quirky piece of historical science writing about the tusk being sold for exorbitant prices as a rare unicorn horn in Victorian Times but rarely does this marine mammal get a mention in a major International News story. Let alone helping to fright crime.

That was until an incident in London, England on Friday November 29th (2019). There was terrorist attack near London Bridge, where an individual started stabbing people with a knife in the Fishmonger’s Hall. In the end, two people were killed and three others were injured. More might have been killed or injured if it hadn’t been for a 1.5 meter (~4 feet) narwhal tusk.

A quick thinking Polish employee of the Fishmonger’s Hall, took the tusk off a wall and confronted the attacker. Together with another bystander, armed with a fire extinguisher, they were able to subdue the attacker until police arrived and shot and killed the suspect.

This was such an odd mishmash of current events and Victorian Nature history and it left me feeling both dark and delighted. It is yet another example that truth really is stranger than fiction because if this was written in a piece of prose, the writer would be deemed hyperbolic or just insane. Who would believe such a story, it verges on magic realism!

It’s touching that this narwhal, in death, played a hand (well a tusk really) in helping to save lives. There is still magic in this old world.

I couldn’t visit the Maine coast without sketching a lighthouse. I chose a lighthouse near my digs in South Portland: Portland Head Light. Which just happens to be one of Maine’s most famous sights. It is feature on posters, postcards, and paintings.

The Portland Head Lighthouse is Maine’s oldest lighthouse. Construction began in 1787 under the order of George Washington. It was completed on January 10, 1791.

The tower is 80 feet above ground and 101 feet above the water. The light is at the entrance of the main shipping lane into Portland Harbor and it’s light can be seen from 24 nautical miles.

Edward Hopper painted this lighthouse in 1927, albeit from a different angle. I felt in good company.

A little watercolor near the water. The rocks just north of the lighthouse provided the perfect sketcher’s seat. I had a raft of common eiders to keep me company.

The next day I headed toward Cape Elizabeth to visit two iconic Maine lighthouses, both where painted by Edward Hopper. Two Lights at Cape Elizabethan the lighthouse at Cape Neddnick.

The Nubble Lighthouse near Old York, Maine.