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Barry Weiss was near Casper when he spotted this Snowy Egret striding along in a lagoon, with its reflection in the water.

Here it looks like the Snowy Egret spotted something tasty for dinner. These egrets have black bills.

They are an uncommon sighting on the Mendonoma coast. Great Egrets, on the other hand, are frequently seen here.

There is a third photo by Barry, which will be in my Mendonoma Sightings column tomorrow in Independent Coast Observer. Thanks to Barry for allowing me to share his photos with you here.

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Green flashes are photographable  mirages. While you can see one at sunrise, I'm told, here on the Mendonoma coast most of us watch for a green flash as sunset. Over the years, coast photographers have captured green flashes. I thought I'd share some with you today.

Here is a photo taken by Don Spear. The green flash only lasts for a brief moment. If you blink, you will miss it!

Jim Grant's photo shows a double green flash. When I look at Jim's photo in full screen, I can see he also captured a green flash morphing into a blue flash, which you will see in Allen's photo below.

And here Rich Kuehn has photographed the classic green flash just beginning. The setting sun appears to narrow, becoming hour-glass shaped. What happens next is the top part appears to pinch off and it becomes a vibrant green flash.

On very rare occasions you might see a green flash morph into a blue flash, as photographed by Allen Vinson.

And the rarest of all was photographed by Ron LeValley - a green flash, no, a blue flash, no a violet flash!

Thanks to Don, Jim, Rich, Allen and Ron for allowing me to share their photos with you here. If you are interesting in purchasing Ron's photo, as Rick and I did, you can find it on Ron's website at this link:

http://levalleyphoto.com/home/

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Sunset watching is a coast tradition; Rick and I try to always take the time to watch it. Several weeks ago I thought I was seeing a double sunset.

I queried Scott Gasparian about my photo, wondering if this was some kind of mirage. He wrote, "I see two super Cumulonimbus cloud cells, with anvil tops. The anvil top means they are very tall, like 40,000 feet at least, so can be seen way far away, and catch the sunlight they are closer to the sunset.

One must be in front of the sun, and the other off to the side. Mirage they would be the same, like mirror, they are different. Look careful and can see the rain and virga catching the light too. Good shot there."

As the sun set, I got this photo with my long lens - I know, it's a little out of focus but still pretty cool to see. The sun set behind the storm cloud on the left.

I hope you enjoy my unusual sighting!

We started off the day near the coast in wet, drippy fog. The sun came out this afternoon. Humpback whales are still being seen, always an exciting sighting.

 

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Oddly enough, before the 2 1/2 inches of rain we had, these Shaggy Manes appeared in the parking area of Gualala Arts and Sus Susalla photographed them.

You can see another group emerging in the back...wow! These are edible mushrooms when young like these.

Thanks to Sus for allowing me to share his photo with you here. To learn more about our fabulous Arts Center, here is the link: http://gualalaarts.org/

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Paul Brewer seems to specialize in beautiful sunrise and sunset photos. He recently photographed a sunrise pretty enough to make you catch your breath.

It helps to have the Pacific Ocean as a backdrop, doesn't it?

Thanks to Paul for allowing me to share his photo with you here. To see much more of Paul's nature photography, here is the link to his website: http://www.capturingnatureswonders.com/

Fog formed up today, cooling off the coast.