Creek Running North 大自然 Meals

September 29, 2007

Meals

Today was an off-day, so I ran just 2.5K. Sun shining, blue sky and clear, 65 degrees Fahrenheit.

At 1.4K, a possum lay in the road, dead and newly discovered. A turkey vulture approached. I slowed, stopped to watch for a moment. The bird was a bit shy, despite my wearing unobtrusive green and black, so I used a car as a blind. It worked over the possum methodically, plucking at loose flaps of skin where the deceased’s abdomen had burst. Cars approached and swerved, and the vulture would look up placidly, saunter to the curb and back again when traffic calmed. I wondered whether I ought to kick the possum to the curb, decided against soiling my shoes, and started running again. The vulture startled a bit when I came out from behind the car, then sauntered back again.

2.0K: An orbweaver’s mesh shines in a bit of sun. A cricket leaps away from the sidewalk as I pass and lands sidelong on the web. The lady of the house leaps up to answer the door. Sorry, cricket. I didn’t mean to.

2.5K: I am stern with myself and my tendency to overtrain, and end my run. I walk toward home.

2.7K: A sweet mare, black with white socks (three ankle-length and one calf-length), pulls up the last remaining dried grass from the south end of her paddock. I gaze at her for a moment. She is too preoccupied to gaze back. I head down the embanked cut toward the railroad, cross the tracks.

3K: From the Fernandez Park bridge over Pinole Creek, I watch a great egret standing among swimming mallards. A fish wriggles in the egret’s beak. A stickleback, by the size of it, or perhaps a steelhead fry. Egret tosses its head, swallows, takes another desultory stab at the placid water among the ducks.

Posted by: Chris Clarke

Categories:
The Creek
The Neighborhood
Wildlife

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Trade you exertion reports:

Seven or so miles up Mission Peak yesterday. Took the southern route. Fewer show-offs on these trails, breezing up the hill in sandals, no water, just out for a last-minute stroll. It’s annoying is that I see so many of them at the top.

Anyway, pulled on my day pack stuffed with rain gear, thermals (might actually need them), swiss army knife, blister kit, extra socks, bread, cheese, and dry-farmed tomatoes and headed out of the parking lot. Low, fast-moving clouds. Rain? Colder than I thought. Didn’t keep the sweat away.

Brown hillsides scored with cattle trails, contour lines transfered from my map right into the ground. Clumps of green oaks and bay trees. And everywhere tufts and brambles and groves of bright red poison oak—California’s take on fall foliage.

Stopped at the 3+ mile mark for lunch, the southern shoulder of the peak. Two smaller birds were harassing a hawk. No, too big. A vulture? Head was all wrong.

The birds dropped below the level of the ridge, Bay Area sprawl making an incongruous backdrop to the aerial dogfight. The big raptor then turned and skimmed up the hillside, coming straight at me.

Dark brown head. Big, bright, black eyes. it swooped past at eye level, so close I could hear its passing. Golden eagle.

Can’t beat that. All downhill, literally and figuratively, from that point on.

But it wasn’t. I had at least six or seven similar encounters with eagles on my way back down. Coincidence. I just happened to be where they wanted to be at the same time. Six or seven times.

1
By: soitnly
on September 29, 2007
at 01:36 PM

I wondered whether I ought to kick the possum to the curb, decided against soiling my shoes,

Especially after working so hard on the shine (sorry, just couldn’t resist). Twenty-five years ago today i would have been somewhere in the lava fields on the Queen Kaahumanu Highway either running or biking with a fellow krewe of tri-eat-alots. Today i settled for a two mile walk along the falls and river.

2
By: spyder
on September 29, 2007
at 04:32 PM