I didnt know the brown pelican was endangered, I see them up and down the coast.
You prompted me to do a Google search... I guess they delisted it a couple of years ago! I remember reading about a small scare this summer, though, with a lot of juveniles being found dead for no apparent reason... I posted a picture of a dead one that I found lying on the beach at Angel Island on the first page.
Some random shots in the city from 2012.09.07 and 2012.09.15, mostly of or from The Presidio, the urban national park that occupies the northwest corner of San Francisco.
Crissy Field
A restored tidal marsh popular for walking, jogging, or bike riding for both locals and tourists. I often use this trail on urban walks from Downtown through Chinatown, North Beach, Fisherman’s Wharf, the Marina, and out to the Golden Gate Bridge, sometimes beyond into Sausalito or the Marin Headlands.
The Presidio has quite a collection of rare and endangered plant species, many of them endemic to coastal habitat that used to cover much of the city but now survives only here. The most exciting recent news came with the rediscovery of a single specimen of the Franciscan manzanita, 60 years after it was previously believed to have gone extinct in the wild, during construction work for the Doyle Drive replacement project (previous picture). Perhaps not as dramatic a survival story, but this is Lessingia germanorum (San Francisco lessingia), another endangered plant found almost exclusively in The Presidio—the only known population outside of the park is in Daly City. You can find them easily this time of year in the Lobos Dunes area or near the Public Service Health Hospital, thanks to replanting efforts.
I commented before but this is seriously an amazing collection of photos you have here. The quality of the photography and variety of subjects is in one word great.
With Google Street View as ubiquitous as it is, it's very easy now to get a feel for the street-level hardscape of a city, so I hope I'm offering a somewhat different perspective, with places and experiences that aren't so easily accessible with a simple Web search. I realize that some of what I post, like the open space and natural elements, isn't exactly every urbanist's cup of tea, but I think they're an integral part of the City and the Bay Area.
Some pictures from this small mountain down in Fremont. Not a good place if you want some solitude on your hike, but you can definitely get a good workout.
Fremont BART Station
I remember a lot of passengers grumbling when these Van Hools were first introduced… They’re pretty much a staple now all across AC Transit’s network.
Forget sports and movie packages… The diversity of today’s suburbs offers new business avenues in the Comcast–AT&T cable wars.
The strip of developed land along the East Bay shoreline gets quite thin down by Fremont, hemmed in by bay sloughs and salt flats on the west and the hills on the east.
Former NUMMI plant, now the Tesla Motors factory
Office parks and big-box stores along Auto Mall Parkway
17th Annual San Francisco International Dragon Boat Festival
2012.09.22
My first time visiting what is billed as the largest competitive dragon boat racing event in the U.S. Started out on the Peninsula, but has since moved onto a larger venue on Treasure Island. The charter bus ride out to the island was free, so it gave me a good excuse to get some shots of the Downtown skyline and the new East Span of the Bay Bridge.
A Princess Cruises boat undergoing repair at the drydock at Pier 70. Most of the Port of San Francisco’s container operations have shifted to Oakland, but the cruise ship business is doing well, with news that the Grand Princess will be based in San Francisco year-round starting next year and work proceeding apace on the new James R. Herman International Cruise Terminal under construction at Pier 27. And with the America’s Cup events, perhaps there is a bit of renewed interest in the city’s maritime roots.