I was preparing to fix breakfast about 11 a.m. today when I looked out the kitchen window and saw a bobcat hunting just outside.

Two weeks ago, as was reported here, I had been thrilled to see and photograph a bobcat hunting near a car parked at my house. This time, the bobcat was even closer.

To photograph it, I slid open the kitchen window as quietly as I could, freezing motionless whenever the bobcat heard a noise and looked up.
The cat was hunting gophers, and I while I watched, it pounced and caught one. With the gopher dangling from its mouth, the bobcat then ran uphill to eat its meal under a clump of coyote brush. Later today, I twice again spotted the bobcat nearby.

Three or four mornings ago, I had likewise looked out a kitchen window and spotted a mottled cat (at left) with a bobbed tail hunting near my woodpile.

Before I got too excited, however, I used my binoculars to inspect it more thoroughly. Rats! It was just a big housecat with a bobbed tail.

Soon the cat walked over to my woodpile and sat at the edge of the tarpaulin that covers it.

While all this was going on, I took a couple of photos just to illustrate the difference between a real bobcat, Lynx rufus californicus, and a faux bobcat, Felis catus.

As can be seen in the photos, the easiest way to tell them apart is that real bobcats don’t wear pet collars.

Here’s hoping you had a happy US Thanksgiving this past fourth Thursday of November. My family in Canada celebrated that country’s Thanksgiving on Oct. 13; it’s the second Monday of October up north where the harvest comes earlier. As for my family down south in Guatemala, that long-suffering country gets no Turkey Day at all.

In Point Reyes Station, approximately 225 guests and 25 volunteers took part in the West Marin Community Thanksgiving Dinner. For the second year, the feast was held in the Dance Palace, with diners filling the main hall and most of the church space.

West Marin Community Resource Center organized the event, but numerous groups ranging from the Inverness Garden Club to the Marin County Fire Department helped with preparations. Here volunteers served a line that stretched around the room.

All fall I’ve been seeing wild turkeys along West Marin’s roads, but I hadn’t spotted any on my own property until this flock of eight hens showed up appropriately enough on the eve of Thanksgiving. Clucking contentedly, they dug small holes in my pasture before moving on.

Wild turkeys, of course, are not native to West Marin. Working with the California Department of Fish & Game, a hunting club in 1988 introduced the wild turkeys on Loma Alta Ridge, which overlooks the San Geronimo Valley. The original flock of 11 hens and three toms all came from a population that Fish & Game had established in the Napa Valley during the 1950s.

There’s not much turkey hunting in West Marin these days except by Point Reyes National Seashore staff trying to exterminate them where it can. On private lands, however, the turkeys can usually find a haven.

While on my deck enjoying the sun around 2 p.m. Saturday, I looked down and spotted something moving in the grass near the cars parked at the foot of my front steps.

After first using a pair of binoculars to confirm that the animal was a bobcat and not just a large housecat, I quickly got out my camera.

I’ve seen a bobcat hunting around my cabin before, and even shot a photo of it, but this was my first chance to photograph one at fairly close range. That was a thrill.

Although rabbit and hare are the primary fare for bobcats in other parts of the country, this member of the lynx genus also hunts small rodents, as well as insects, and even deer in some regions. Their numbers are fairly stable in most of the United States despite heavy hunting in some places.

The subspecies of bobcat common to this region is the Lynx rufus Californicus. The adult male averages three feet in length, including a 4- to 7-inch bobbed tail, and is about 15 inches tall at the shoulder.

In Point Reyes Station, which President-elect Barack Obama carried with 86.1 percent of the vote, brown hills quickly turned to green after the election.

It’s time for another installment in this blog’s occasional series Quotes Worth Saving, which, in fact, is the label on the file in which I save them. Here are a few gleaned from the press during the past three years.

SWANSEA WALES  When officials [via email] asked for the Welsh translation of a road sign [“No entry for heavy-goods vehicles. Residential site only.”], they thought the reply was what they needed.

Unfortunately, the email response [Nid wyf yn y swyddfa ar hyn o bryd. Anfonwch unrhyw waith i’w gyfieithu.] to Swansea council said in Welsh, “I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated.” So that was what went up under the English version, which barred lorries from a road near a supermarket. “When they’re proofing signs, they should really use someone who speaks Welsh,” said journalist Dylan Iorwerth. BBC, Oct. 31, 2008

All official roadsigns in Wales must be bilingual, and this is hardly the first time confusion has occurred in translations:

VALE OF GLAMORGAN, WALES  Cyclists were left confused by a bilingual roadsign telling them they had problems with an inflamed bladder. The “Cyclists Dismount” sign between Penarth and Cardiff became”llid y bledren dymchwelyd” in  Welsh, literally “Bladder Inflammation Upset” The Vale of Glamorgan Council said new signs were being made. “It is possible that an online translation led to confusion between cyclists and cystitis.” BBC, Aug. 15, 2006

And there are times when despite everything being clearly written, the reader is left wondering, “What the heck was really going on?”

FRESNO  Fresno County authorities have arrested a man they say broke into the home of two farmworkers, rubbed one with spices, and whacked the other with a sausage before fleeing. The suspect, 22-year-old Antonio Vasquez of Fresno, was found hiding in a nearby field wearing only a T-shirt, boxer shorts, and socks.

The victims told deputies they awoke Saturday morning to the stranger applying spices to one of them and striking the other with an 8-inch sausage. Money allegedly stolen in the burglary was recovered. The sausage was tossed away by the fleeing suspect and eaten by a dog. Associated Press, Sept. 8, 2008

She’s no paparazzi, but San Francisco Chronicle columnist Leah Garchik features a “Public Eavesdropping” item in each column. Six weeks after Italy’s most-beloved opera singer died last year, Garchik quoted a tourist in Paris remarking, “I never understood why Pavarotti was chasing Princess Diana.” San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 19, 2007

A healing this nation has needed for more than two centuries has just occurred, and like many of the people around me this past evening, I’ve found my eyes periodically filling with tears of happiness.

In West Marin, Barack Obama picks up 86 percent of the vote on his way to winning the presidency. Tuesday night in Point Reyes Station, a crowd at Café Reyes joins in as televised crowds of Obama supporters elsewhere cheer state-by-state election returns.

Back in the 1960s, I tried to do what I could for the Civil Rights Movement, assisting with a Civil Rights broadcast on KZSU, Stanford University’s radio station; taking part in a drive to register black voters in Leesburg, Florida, when it was still mostly segregated; and serving as faculty advisor to Upper Iowa College’s black-student union, the Brotherhood. In those days, this country’s racial divisions loomed so large I would never have imagined that within 40 years the United States would elect a black president. But Tuesday we did.

Yet it is noteworthy that most Americans did not vote for Obama for the sake of electing a black president.

In exit polls, almost two thirds of Tuesday’s voters said their biggest concern was the US economic recession, and a majority thought Obama could cope with it better than Republican John McCain. In short, voters were more concerned with economics than with race, and that simple fact is a wonderful indication of our country’s having matured.

Exit polls found that overall a majority of whites, blacks, and Latinos favored Obama, but unlike white women, less than half of white men, 43 percent, preferred Obama. That statistic has been used to imply that many white men couldn’t overlook Obama’s being black.

In fact, it shows just the opposite. Democratic candidates for president seldom do as well as Republican candidates among white men. President Bill Clinton, for example, won only 39 percent of the the white male vote in 1992 and 43 percent in 1996. Obviously, Obama’s race didn’t hurt him among white male voters.

Tuesday’s election, of course, wasn’t all about race and economics. The United States is currently fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Its international reputation has been shredded by the outrages at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. And its healthcare system is causing suffering for many Americans.

For a president of any race to take all this on would be an enormous challenge, but at least Obama begins with a mandate from his countrymen and the blessings of the rest of the world. While voters didn’t elect Obama primarily to restore America’s reputation abroad, that could be the election’s most-immediate effect, as news reports from around the globe confirm.

Watching television, Tuesday night‘s crowd at Café Reyes eagerly waits for the networks to declare Obama the winner, which occurs at 8 p.m. sharp, an hour after the polls close in Point Reyes Station.

Here are the results of local votes on the West Marin ballot (winners in boldface):

Congress: Democratic incumbent Lynn Woolsey, 73 percent; Republican Mike Halliwell, 23 percent. (Woolsey at the same time beat Halliwell 71 percent to 25 percent in Sonoma County.)

State Senate: Democrat Mark Leno, 75 percent; Republican Sashi McEntee, 24 percent. (Leno also bested McEntee 71 percent to 29 percent in Sonoma County and 87 percent to 13 percent in San Francisco.)

Assembly: Democratic incumbent Jared Huffman, 72 percent; Republican Paul Lavery, 23 percent. (Huffman likewise topped Lavery 66 percent to 26 percent in Sonoma County.)

Bolinas Fire Protection District: incumbent David Kimball, 40 percent; Sheila O’Donnell, 27 percent; Shannon Kilkenny, 24 percent; Donald Holmes, 8 percent.

Marin Healthcare District: incumbent Sharon Jackson, 30 percent; Hank Simmonds, 24 percent; Archimedes Ramirez, 23 percent; Frank Parnell, 21 percent; Peter Romanowsky, 2 percent.

Measure Q (Sonoma-Marin rail district, combined two-thirds vote needed): Marin County, 63 percent yes, 37 percent no; Sonoma County, 73.5 percent yes, 26.5 percent no.

Getting ready for disaster is both anxiety-ridden and fun, as some of us in West Marin learned in the last few days. One particularly fun event was the West Marin Disaster Council’s annual pancake breakfast in the Point Reyes Station firehouse.

Retired County Administrator Mark Riesenfeld of Point Reyes Station watches Inverness volunteer firefighter Ken Fox pour batter at the West Marin Disaster Council’s  pancake breakfast Sunday.

During the fundraiser, oyster farmer Kevin Lunny (center) chats with Marin Magazine writer P.J. Bremier (in dark glasses). In the November issue, Bremer writes at length about the Point Reyes National Seashore’s desire to close down Lunny’s century-old oyster operation. Listening (left of him) is Dolly Aleshire of Inverness. Librarian Jennifer Livingston of Inverness stands in the foreground.

Marin County firefighter Tony Giacomini reads off the names of winners in the disaster council’s raffle. Assisting him are his wife Nikki, his son Brandt (who has just drawn a ticket), and Brandt’s brother Ryan (beside him).

Raising money for disaster preparedness, as was noted, is the fun part. The anxiety-ridden part was the drill we disaster council members held last week.

Here was the mock scenario. On Tuesday, a Magnitude 6.9 earthquake on the Hayward Fault (which runs from Fremont to San Pablo Bay) causes massive destruction. Some 2,000 Bay Area people die, and 5,000 more go to hospitals.

Marin County is mostly isolated from the outside world with Highway 101 blocked at Petaluma, the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge closed, and the Golden Gate Bridge reduced to one lane. It takes until Thursday to get a comprehensive assessment of the damage.

So last Thursday morning, about 50 public employees set up shop in an alternative emergency-operations center at the jail while out here on the coast, neighborhood liaisons to the West Marin Disaster Council pretended to look for damage.

I’m the Campolindo Drive liaison to the disaster council. That basically means in case of a disaster, such as a major earthquake, I’m supposed to radio my area coordinator, Kate Kain of Point Reyes Station, and let her know if there are any serious problems on this road.

Thursday was the day to test our ability to use the high tech walkie-talkies we’ve all been issued. We’d received instructions from radio expert Richard Dillman (who also does technical work at KWMR), but most of us had never before used the radios, and I was a bit nervous.

What if I couldn’t remember which of the radio’s many buttons to press when I tried to speak on the air? If I pressed one wrong button, I’d change the band on which I wanted to broadcast. Another button would set off a disruptive beeping at Kate’s house. If I went on the air at the wrong time, I’d interfere with another liaison’s reporting in.

I set the alarm for 9:30 a.m. Thursday, which is early for me, and likewise took an early shower. (I was going to be sharp for this drill.) Methodically, I ate breakfast and read the morning newspaper. (I was also going to be full of energy and in possession of the latest information.)

At 11 a.m. as scheduled, I went out on my deck to radio Kate, whose house I can nearly see from mine. Although I could hear other people radioing in reports, it took me several minutes to figure out the correct button for talking on the air. (It’s under my thumb in the photo above.) Eventually, I managed to get through and report that all was well on Campolindo Drive. Kate thanked me for taking part in the drill, and that was that.

I went inside feeling mightily relieved. I’d passed the test! I’d managed to work that mysterious radio without making a fool of myself! To celebrate, I took the rest of the day off.

A male Western gray squirrel as seen from my bedroom window one morning two weeks ago.

I’d always thought of squirrels as basically benign creatures albeit a bit, shall we say, squirrelly. But then came a BBC report in December 2005: Russian squirrel pack ‘kills dog.‘

Quoting Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, the BBC reported; “Squirrels have bitten to death a stray dog which was barking at them in a Russian park… Passersby were too late to stop the attack by black squirrels in a village in the far east….

“They are said to have scampered off at the sight of humans, some carrying pieces of flesh. A pine cone shortage may have led to the squirrels to seek other food sources, although scientists are skeptical.”

Did the attack really happen? Whatever happens in Russia, to quote Winston Churchill, “is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” All I can tell you is that squirrels are omnivorous and will eat small birds, along with acorns. Moreover, Komosmolskaya Pravda reported that just a few months earlier, chipmunks had “terrorized cats” in the area.

Squirrels on this hill have plenty of pine cones to dine on, which could explain why they don’t bother to attack dogs (or cats). The squirrels, however, make their presence known in other ways. My neighbors and I are forever finding tips of pine branches lying on the ground.

Western gray squirrels (Scuirus grilseus) like to feed on pine trees’ cambium layer, which is immediately under the bark, the University of California’s Integrated Pest Management Program notes. In the process, squirrels gnaw off twigs.

One of the four species of tree squirrels in California is a particular problem for agricultural and suburban gardens, which is why Integrated Pest Management is interested in squirrels.

California’s native Douglas squirrels (found in the Sierra and on the North Coast) are seldom a problem. Native Western gray squirrels and non-native Eastern gray squirrels aren’t all that much of a problem either. “Eastern gray squirrels (Scuirus carolinensis) were originally introduced from the eastern United States into Golden Gate Park in San Francisco,” Integrated Pest Management reports. They’ve already spread out to San Joaquin and Calveras counties, and “may be expanding their range.”

By far the most problematic squirrels are “Eastern fox squirrels (Sciurus niger), Integrated Pest Management notes. They “were introduced from the eastern part of the United States and are well established in most major cities of California…. In some cities, Eastern fox squirrels have moved outward into agricultural land, especially in the southern part of the state, where they have become a pest of commercial crops.”

Although you need a state permit to kill or capture most tree squirrels in California, the same does not hold true for Eastern fox squirrels. California is a free-fire zone when it comes to these rodents, which are also known as Red fox squirrels.

Some people have theorized that Scuridae, the scientific name for the family of rodents to which squirrels and chipmunks belong, may have the same root as our word scurry.

Whatever the case, it is known that the name squirrel comes to us from squyrel in Middle English (what Chaucer spoke in the 1300s). Squyrel, in turn, came from the ancient Greek word skiouros, which not surprisingly meant squirrel.

On more than a few nights, I’ve heard coyotes around my cabin, for they typically hunt in pairs, howling and yipping back and forth to keep track of where the other one is. I’ve seen coyotes in the Point Reyes National Seashore, as well as beside Nicasio Reservoir and on Highway 1 near Campolindo Way in Point Reyes Station.

Last Thursday, however, was the first time I managed to not only see but photograph a coyote close to the house.

As it happened, last Thursday I drove Seeva Cherms, daughter of Linda Sturdivant of Inverness Park, to Novato and back. As we pulled up to my cabin upon our return, Seeva spotted an animal lying in the grass just uphill from where I was parking.

“Look!” she exclaimed. “There’s a coyote!” Because it was still bright daylight, I was initially skeptical. From its color, it could have been a deer, but when the coyote stood up, there was no mistaking it.

Luckily I had my camera in the car, and as I took it out, the coyote began ambling uphill slowly, giving me a chance to shoot several photos.

There were no coyotes in West Marin for 40 years because of poisoning by sheep ranchers in northwest Marin and southern Sonoma counties. However, coyotes never disappeared from northern Sonoma County, and after the Nixon Administration banned the poison 10-80, they started spreading south and showed up here again in 1983.

Since then, coyotes have put an end to well over half the sheep ranching around Marshall, Tomales, Dillon Beach, and Valley Ford.

Coyotes, which evolved in North America two million years ago, can now be found from Alaska to Panama. In fact, their name in English is derived from coyotl, which was given to them by the Nahuatl tribe of central Mexico.

Northern coyotes are the largest, weighing up to 75 pounds and measuring more than five feet long. Coyotes have been clocked at just under 45 mph while chasing prey and can jump almost 15 feet while on the run. Interestingly, coyotes — like domestic dogs — have sweat glands on the pads of their paws. Wolves don’t. (Nor do New England coyotes, which are bigger than the coyotes around here and whose ancestry is presumed to be part wolf.)

Unlike many predators, coyotes have actually benefited from the European settlement of North America. Most significantly, the white man eliminated many of the wolves that prey on coyotes. A brief clip from the National Geographic Channel of a wolf-coyote encounter (with a happy ending) can be seen by clicking here.

Modern society has also encouraged the spread of coyotes by providing them with food sources ranging from abundant garbage to small pets. As a result, coyotes live longer in suburban and urban areas than they do in the wilds, according to a study conducted from 2000 to 2007 by Ohio State University researchers.

The researchers determined that roughly 2,000 coyotes live in the Chicago metropolitan area alone and concluded comparable populations could be found at other US cities. Two years ago, in fact, a coyote was captured in Manhattan’s Central Park.

Other than rifle-toting sheep ranchers, mountain lions are the only significant threats to coyotes in West Marin, and in the wild, coyotes can live up to 10 years.

While coyotes have been known to mate with wolves, their more common inter-species dalliances are with domestic dogs. Indeed, not too long ago, various people walking female dogs near Abbott’s Lagoon were horrified when they spotted a male coyote heading toward their pet, only to discover the guy wanted to get it on with Lassie, not devour her.

Two weeks ago, I along with hundreds of other homeowners in West Marin received a letter from the Marin County Fire Department reminding us what the California Public Resources Code has to say about fire prevention. It was a somber message:

“Defensible space is required by law (4290 and 4291 PRC) for all property owners in State Responsibility Areas (SRA). Your property is located in an SRA wildland/urban-interface area and is at risk of destruction by wildfire. The attached form must be returned by mail or completed online at within 30 days.”

The form includes 10 requirements that range from clearing a “defensible space 100 feet from all structures” and removing “all dead vegetation (leaves, needles, branches etc.) and cut or mowed all dry grass within 100 feet of my home” to removing “all tree limbs on mature trees within 10 feet of the ground” and removing “tree limbs that are within 10 feet of my chimney or that over hang my roof.”

The letter, which was signed by Fire Chief Ken Massucco, warned: “Fire-prevention staff from the Marin County Fire Department will inspect all properties in wildfire-prone areas in 2008 and subsequent years. Any property not in compliance may face enforcement action or fines from the Marin County fire marshal.”

Although the only “wildland” my property interfaces with, other than neighboring households, is a horse pasture, I took the notice seriously. I can recall a breakfast 13 years ago when from my dining-room table I could see towering flames sweeping down Inverness Ridge on the other side of Tomales Bay. That fire destroyed 45 houses and blackened 12,000 acres. It was so intense that for two hours on the morning of Oct. 4, 1995, the fire consumed roughly an acre of wildland per second.

In short, fires spread all too easily. As noted here three weeks ago, fires swept through Tomales in 1877, 1891, 1898, and 1920, destroying much of the town each time. The Marin Independent Journal last November reported: “Pete Martin, a retired Marin County Fire Department captain, said [in a meeting at the Mill Valley Community Center] there have been 10 major fires in Marin, starting in 1881 when a Corte Madera farmer burning brush sparked a 65,000-acre fire.

“In September 1923, a 40,000-acre fire raged through Ignacio Valley, destroying 17 homes. That same day, 584 homes were destroyed by fire in the Berkeley Hills. Another 110 homes were lost in the 1929 Mill Valley blaze, Martin said. Most of the fires started in September and were fed by what Martin called ‘devil winds,’ blowing from the inland hills toward the ocean, very similar to the Santa Ana winds in Southern California.”

Last July, I had hauled two pickup-truck loads of brush and limbs to a fire department disposal site in Olema, but after receiving the fire chief’s letter, I set out to clear away some more. I cut low limbs off 10 pine trees plus an ornamental tree of unknown variety with a trunk as hard as iron — and just about as heavy. I cut back coyote brush along my driveway, and for the third time this year, I trimmed grass around my cabin. It was strenuous work, especially because much of the cut foliage had to be dragged nearly 100 yards to a brush pile at the foot of my driveway.

Some of the work to be done, however, required more than time and sweat. I had already felled one dead pine tree this summer, but now I was confronted with a significantly larger one. In addition, some large limbs hanging over my roof had to be removed, and I figured it would be risky for both me and the roof to climb a tree with a chainsaw and cut them off myself.

Nick Whitney uses a pruning hook to trim small branches off one pine tree before cutting larger branches off another.

So I called Nick Whitney of Pacific Slope, and last Thursday he and his crew of tree trimmers showed up. The three of them spent half a day felling the dead pine, cutting branches away from my roof, using a blower to clean pine needles from my rain gutter, chipping all the foliage they’d cut, chipping my own brush pile, and then hauling all the chippings away. By the time they left, my cabin looked noticeably less vulnerable to wildfires.

Fire Chief Massucco had written that “2008 is already the most devastating fire season on record in Northern California, and fire danger will be at its worst in September and October. Marin County is one of the most fire-prone landscapes in California and has a long history of destructive wildfires.”

It is obvious that numerous homes in Inverness and Inverness Park, as well as throughout the San Geronimo Valley, are nowhere near compliance with the fire department’s orders, so on Friday I was feeling a bit smug when I paid a visit on friends in Inverness Park. As it happened, I was outdoors talking to Terry Gray when a drizzle that soon turned into light rain began falling.

“There goes the fire season,” I remarked. “Well, that’s good,” responded Terry, somewhat surprised by the sigh in my voice. Sheepishly I realized I probably sounded like an architect of America’s anti-missile system who’s disappointed when Russia doesn’t attack. So I quickly agreed, “Yes, it is good the fire season’s over.”

Now that warm weather is back, however, that may not be the case.

An exhibition titled Silver & Oil: Landscape Photographs and Paintings opened Saturday at the Claudia Chapline Gallery in Stinson Beach, drawing an appreciative crowd.

The photographs are by Art Rogers of Point Reyes Station (seen here with gallery owner Claudia Chapline). Rogers is best known for his black-and-white portraits of people in West Marin, but his landscape photos stray as far afield as Kentucky where his wife Laura’s parents live.

The painter, Thomas Wood of Nicasio, has gained widespread acclaim for his oils, a number of which are reminiscent of French Impressionists’ landscapes.

The exhibition of photography by Rogers and paintings by Wood will continue through Sept. 14 at the gallery on Highway 1.