moving around

Robb and I signed out the tandem recumbent trike from the Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Program again. This time, we took the bridge over the freeway, and rode along the San Francisco Bay Trail, past Golden Gate Fields. We made a lot of stops, to look at birds, or to adjust the straps that held Robb's feet to the pedals. This machine certainly is a conversation starter. Any time I stopped to take photos of birds, people would come up to Robb to ask about the bike. I did manage to do a little on-board knitting, but it was more symbolic than productive. Still, I think Erica would be proud of me, for finding a way to incorporate cycling and knitting into Robb's recovery.


After our ride, we stopped by a little bay side sandwich joint and while we were sitting outside drinking coffee (and knitting), our friends Jim and Erin rode by with their baby Tyler. We chatted with them for a while, and ended up running into them again at the Cesar Chavez Park. It was an unusually beautiful day, and for once, the park wasn't insanely windy. Typically, the wind blasts through the Golden Gate, and pummels this park


Both Robb and Tyler are working on walking.

Here are a few park denizens.


A Black Phoebe. (I just learned that the Eastern Phoebe was the first banded bird. Apparently John James Audubon put a silvered thread around one of these birds legs in 1804 to track its annual return.)


A White-Crowned Sparrow with a damaged beak. You can see that the entire top of the bird's beak has broken off.


This is the California Ground Squirrel. I had no idea that squirrels ate mushrooms.


When I was a child, my family hand-reared an orphaned grey squirrel, that fell out of its nest on my sister's birthday.

The birds at the top of this entry are Double Crested Cormorants. Unlike most diving birds, cormorants' feathers are not waterproof, as a result, they have to air dry their feathers after swimming.


Although it was almost too still for kites, we did see some other flying things at the park.

On our drive home, we stopped along the bay near Emeryville to look at more birds.


This is a Long Billed Curlew. I love that name! I think of this bird's long, curly bill.


In case we're sounding too knowledgeable, here is some kind of bird that we can never identify. Sandpipery peep thingamajig.