Weekend walk report: Department of Redundancy Department

 That's right, you heard right, I decided to go for a sure thing this weekend and revisit the Eremophila racemosa shrub I found brimming with hummingbird activity last Sunday. I planned on a lot of sameness in the photo department but here's the deal... My local botanical garden has been seriously lacking in flowers for months now and along with the floral barrenness I have been truly missing opportunities to photograph hummingbirds. So I spent much of photographic part of this weekend's walks hanging around said bush again while hummingbirds darted about.

Here are some pictures taken on my walks for Saturday, February 15th and Sunday (today) February 16th.

 Saturday, February 15th

Over the phone I had Docken's company along the way. Thank you Docken!

My greeter as I entered the garden area. This tree squirrel simply stood in this spot and watched me come in along the sidewalk. 

Now to be perfectly honest, even though I had plans to visit the Eremophila shrub I think I may have gotten distracted by my other pursuit which was to look for mushrooms to take closeup images of. After the recent rains and seeing these growing out of a crack in my backyard patio on Friday I was certain there would be mushrooms growing everywhere.

I searched high and low but mostly low, covering a little over 2.5 miles and did not see a single mushroom. However, along the way...

Canada geese.

 And a couple of red-tailed hawks.

 There were so many places I thought I'd see mushrooms in a vast array of wood chips and also in cow chips but nothing. So I headed back to the botanical garden to visit the showy Eremophila bush. Just like last week hummingbirds were all over it. These should be in the order in which they were taken.

These next two were taken within a fraction of a second of one another. I couldn't decide which one I liked best and to keep within the theme of redundancy, well, here ya go.

There were three male Calypte anna hummingbirds and two female or immature Selasphorus sasin  (Allen's) hummingbirds. The Allen's hummingbirds despite their smaller size were especially aggressive which also made photo captures difficult. But wait... more to follow.

 Sunday (today), February 16th

Once again thanks to Docken for joining me over the phone. Heading toward the local college campus there were some chalk messages on the sidewalk along the way. 

This was one of several planters for trees on the curbside of the sidewalk, separating the sidewalk from the adjacent street. I think these were mostly myrtle trees that were never maintained so, of course, they died. Someone had something to say about that (remember, you can click to make images larger).

One of the supports for a tree gone absent ("Tree Wanted").

 

 

Another important message.

 

 And one more thing to think about.

 

 Onto the garden and some more redundancy. But first, despite a certain new redundancy, I was able to finally capture one of the Selasphorus sasin hummingbirds. I'm pretty sure this is a female but it could be an immature male.

 

There were two Allen's hummingbirds and I'm pretty sure there were four male Anna's (hmm, can we thank our old friend Dusty for some of this?)

 This is a Cooper's hawk and he's in the eucalyptus tree that's right behind the Eremophila bush. Needless to say, all of the hummingbirds left the area during its presence. 

A couple of minutes after the hawk flew off the show was back.

 
The previously mentioned eucalyptus tree was sometimes used as a rest stop.

 I also wanted to show a few of the flowers closeup. Note the fuzzy material that almost looks like small tufts of cotton. I couldn't find examples of this online so I'm not sure what to make of it but it looks like great material for nest building and it got on more than a beak or two. Maybe it helps carry seed from the flowers?

 

That's it but I'll probably go back next weekend too. As long as there are flowers remaining on that bush it's a hummingbird magnet.

Weekend walk report: Super what?!

It's game time and looks like I'm not watching. I did however check in for a moment to see the game go 17-zip in favor of the Philadelphia Eagles. Really don't care, really don't care, don't care, really don't.*

Here are some pictures from walks on Saturday, February 8th and Sunday (today), February 9th. I was so happy to see some hummingbirds again today.

 Saturday, February 8th

I believe these are Senecio elegans, known by the common names, purple groundsel, wild cineraria and purple ragwort. 

Some variety of Geranium.

Dianthus barbatus, AKA, the sweet William.

Salvia Greggii 'White', AKA, the autumn sage.

Gaillardia pulchella (Indian blanket).

This is a canna lily Flower. My bad, I knocked it off the stem by cutting off a piece of dead debris with my pen knife.

 Sunday (today), February 9th

I want to thank Docken for joining me over the phone today. It made things a lot nicer and I probably wouldn't have had the patience to stick around if she wasn't there. A couple of women decided to hang out nearby and if I didn't have Docky on the phone to complain to I certainly wouldn't have had the fortitude to endure their cackling off in the distance.  Also, in making sure I didn't cross paths with them, that put me squarely next to a flowering Eremophila racemosa shrub loaded with flowers and very attractive to several hummingbirds.

 A couple of different Setophaga coronata (warblers), AKA, Butter Butts.

Bees on some variety of Acacia shrubs.

The stars of the show. There were at least two but I think three male Calypte anna (Anna's) hummingbirds, two are shown in these images and there was also a female Selasphorus sasin (Allen's hummingbird). The fierce competition over this rather large Eremophila racemosa shrub made things really difficult for the photographer. They spent more time chasing each other away than they did seeking nectar. I don't recall this bush ever flowering so prolifically before, although it's relatively new, maybe in its third year in the garden.

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