The San Francisco Citizen

The bird on the left in this photo from Golden Gate Park is an adult that has adopted the baby Brown-Headed Cowbird on the right. The baby cowbird’s real mother is a brood parasite, so she doesn’t know how to build a nest of her own. She just lays eggs in existing nests and lets other parents do all the work. When the interloping egg hatches, the newborn cowbird succesfully competes against its nestmates.

The tricked parent bird doesn’t know the difference and works twice as hard to feed the baby cowbird. In this scene, the young cowbird receiving food is already bigger than its adoptive parent. 

Click to enlarge:

These cowbirds were native to the Midwest, but some of them traveled to the bay area about 85 years ago. Cowbirds remain a threat to native species in the bay area and beyond.

It’s just been three days since Amy Keyishian and Randy Hauser got married but they already have happy memories of a bliss-filled trip on a paddleboat around Stow Lake in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.

And what accompaniment they had in the back seat - the silken voices and twinkling ukuleles of The Paper Dolls! (Which Morrissey / Smiths songs did they play?)

via artolog’s Photostream 

Congratulations go out to Randy and Amy!

Well, it was quite a spectacle last week at the opening of Cinema Supper Club, From the Golden Gate to the Silver Screen, in the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco. Thursday night’s kickoff of 50-year-old Vertigo featured the living relatives of Alfred Hitchcock, a live recreation of the Carlotta portrait featured in the movie, a pre-show talk from the authors of Footsteps in the Fog, and people walking around in period dress from 50 years ago.

The whole idea is that you can start noshing at 6:00 P.M. and also have time to be able to check out Women Impressionists and the huge Chihulys before the film starts at 8:00 P.M. See the schedule below and get your tickets here.

Authors Jeff Kroft and Aaron Levanthal talk about Hitchcock movies filmed in Northern California. Click to expand:

Carlotta recreated. The painting actually used in Vertigo has been lost to the ages.

Gallery Six, where Carlotta’s portrait was hung.

A vintage Jaguar, just like the movie’s.

July 17, 2008, 8:00 PM,
Cinema Supper Club: The Conversation

July 24, 2008, 8:00 PM,
Cinema Supper Club: What’s Up, Doc?

July 31, 2008, 8:00 PM,
Cinema Supper Club: So I Married an Axe Murderer

August 7, 2008, 8:00 PM,
Cinema Supper Club: Harold and Maude

August 14, 2008, 8:00 PM,
Cinema Supper Club: The Game

August 21, 2008, 8:00 PM,
Cinema Supper Club: Bullitt

See you there!

You cagers in your cars don’t know the joy of SuzikiGirl, who never misses a green light on the streets of San Francisco.

A small motorcycle gets you around a little faster and a little safer than a scooter, don’t you think?  

This is what our small version of the the Marine Corps War Memorial looks like from Interstate 80 in Tormey, Contra Costa County.

“Vince Ramos of Crockett guesses he has captured the essence of what someone gazing at Mount Suribachi on the Pacific island of Iwo Jima on Feb. 23, 1945, would have seen. The tall hill in Tormey, west of Interstate 80 and just north of the Cummings Skyway, is home to Ramos’ replica of the celebrated flag-raising. The statue is a tribute to his late brother, Fernando, a U.S. Marine who served on Iwo Jima, the site of one of World War II’s bloodiest battles.”

You might notice it if you look up from the freeway near the Carquinez Bridge.