Rethinking the Route: Beating the Summer Heat

 I had every intention of walking on Saturday, taking pictures, and hopefully having enough stuff for a walk report. The walk took place; it was only 1.9 miles, but I was on foot for an hour. It was an hour because I was waiting for a photo opportunity. My first "vantage point" (in part because there's a nice bench in the shade) is 0.47 miles into the path I was taking. I see a blur of yellow in the trees ahead of me, and my first thought is, a Hooded Oriole. Sure enough, there's a female mostly obscured by branches and inside dense shadows. Male Hooded Orioles arrive in SoCal late February to early March; they establish a territory and feeding grounds. Females arrive shortly after and frequently establish nests into the fronds of fan palm trees. We have plenty of those. Too many. High rise condos for rats, I tell ya. Nesting and mating is from April to May. From June to August, they often raise a second clutch. So, they're around for about seven months, but I only see a few each year. Photos have been rare, and I only got a couple of horrible images off on Saturday before she vanished. 

Now, there's a catch, and quite honestly, I really went on Google's image search to tell me what's up. It isn't always correct. Bullock's Orioles are also common in Southern California during the spring and summer, following a very similar migration timeline to the Hooded Oriole. You can easily tell the males apart by looking at their faces and wings, while the trickier females can be distinguished by their belly color and throat markings. 

Here are two shots of a male Bullock's Oriole. The first is from July 20th, 2016 (10 years ago today), and the second is from May 28th, 2016.

 

And this is a female Bullock's Oriole from June 18th, 2016 

 The photos I'm not showing you from Saturday, Google insists is a Hooded Oriole. I was convinced. So, a long way to go just to say I'm not posting a crappy photo. 

This image of a female Allen's hummingbird is from Saturday. It could be an immature male but I'm going with female. The shrub is a Caesalpinia gilliesii. I thought that branch was interesting.

 I'm 1.07 miles in on the walk at this point. I started walking at 7:50, it was 71º F at 7:50 AM and relative humidity was 67%. Now, part of the issue I was starting to have had to do with my attire. I was wearing a long sleeved polyester shirt--highly non-absorbent and lacking breathability, making it feel like a greenhouse in hot or humid conditions. I also walk fast. I know, it's only pushing 73º at this point but I found it quite uncomfortable. I remember around 2011-2012 I would try to wait for the temperature to drop below 90º before going for a walk (much longer walks too) and there were days that it simply was not possible to wait. I had certain responsibilities at home that didn't allow for me to wait until perhaps 8-9 PM to go for a walk and early AM was simply not practical. I remember going out and it was close to 95º. It wasn't comfortable but I could handle it. Last year I started making it a goal to get out in the AM before it hit 80º but now I'm finding 80º and hustling a walk difficult. 

A few days ago, I decided I need to augment my exercise protocol to accommodate summer heat, household responsibilities, etc., and I began reinstituting an old standby, inside, no dress code, no need to shower and with the aid of air conditioning, it could be done just about any time of day. Here's the set-up.

 
The Spirit XRB25 recumbent bike has 20 levels of electronically controlled magnetic resistance paired with a heavy-duty 20 lb steel flywheel for smooth, quiet pedaling. It still sells for around $1,449. This was my mother's bike. I also wrote about it here. I just read that again the other day. That's been mostly the point of this blog to begin with. It's a diary. Reflecting back on 13 years ago and putting in both 11-13 miles on the bike but also walking over five miles was a sobering moment. 

I typically set the resistance between 6 and 7 and ride flat out. "P" is for pulse and it almost never works. Elapsed time, distance and calories burned. You can add personal data and set up custom programs.

The Bridgestone RB-1, I bought that at Beverly Hills Bike Shop in 1992. The owner, Steve (my understanding is he still owns it, moved from Robertson Blvd. to W. Pico Blvd.), called me one day, knowing I was looking for something reasonably affordable with a tall frame. He had the bike shipped from a shop in New York. The owner there couldn't find a customer for a 25" frame. A 25" (63.5 cm) bike frame is considered very tall. It is typically designed for riders who are 6'4" or taller and have an inseam of 36 inches or more. That would be me. That white trainer the bike is propped up on was also purchased from BH Bike Shop. I always liked Steve, he was knowledgeable and extremely helpful. Apparently the RB-1 is now a "cult classic" among some cycling enthusiasts, selling for upwards of $1,400.

I used to take the RB-1 out after work when living adjacent to Beverly Hills, near Robertson Blvd., south of Pico, and ride into Beverly Hills proper, up and down between Santa Monica Blvd. and Sunset Blvd. (hey, I'm having fun picturing this) over to N. Linden Drive. I took N. Linden up to Sunset and then I raced cars on Sunset Blvd., usually to N. Doheny Drive. This was during rush hour. N. Doheny had a nice steep downhill to start me heading back home. Okay, yeah, it was nuts, but I was wearing a helmet ;-). I was also hyper-focused. Parked cars. Scary. For the most part, I would almost always catch up to traffic at each stoplight and then sail past cars up to the next traffic light. It was impeccably timed. 

Here's a map, probably a little difficult to figure out. I had to piece together three screenshots. The word, “Start," is in the bottom right corner, that would, of course, also be the finish. I don't recall the mileage; it wasn't that long, it was just intense.

 

The two bikes are very different experiences riding stationary. I'm sure I'll have more to say about it. I still need to do some housekeeping on the bikes and the arrangement. 

Back to Saturday's walk... 

Sour grapes.

I just wanna ride 
Get on my bike and ride
 

Today's walk report: Butt what?!

 I debated this for quite a while and concluded it would be poor journalistic practice and substandard reporting  if I didn't include it in my report. I have to say it is probably the weirdest item I have ever encountered during one of my walks. To make matters worse, I even did a Google image search to make sure it couldn't be something else, only to find that some models include functional features like vibrations or LED lighting. And that's all I have to say.

 Moving along to the General Audiences portion of my walk... 

Female, Allen's hummingbird (Selasphorus sasin). 

 Cabbage White Butterfly (Pieris rapae), considered a major agricultural and garden pest but they are one of my favorite butterflies.

A favorite of mine because in March of 2014, National Geographic had an online community called Your Shot, and there was an assignment requesting images for a story on Biodiversity. I entered a 5-image focus stack of a cabbage white for the assignment. Not only was my image selected, I found out a short while later that National Geographic wanted to use the picture for an upcoming book titled, "Getting Your Shot: Stunning Photos, How-to Tips, and Endless Inspiration From the Pros." My photo ended up spanning the two inside title pages.

 In classically typical National Geographic style, they over saturated my image. Your Shot later moved to Instagram and that's when I bowed out of participating. 

The southwestern fence lizard (Sceloporus cowlesi).

 
Once again, Brachychiton acerifolius (Flame Tree), but I wanted to point out the larger of the two flying

insects in the upper left. That is Cotinis mutabilis, also known as the figeater beetle (also green fruit beetle or fig beetle). It is a member of the scarab beetle family, and they were swarming everywhere today. I looked in usual places and tried to find one close up but wasn't able to. The other insect is a dragonfly. Also known as mosquito hawks in Louisiana. 

Here's a picture I took of a pair of green fruit beetles back in 2013. The fruit is Catalina Cherry (Prunus ilicifolia).

 Callistemon, this was a hand-held five image focus stack. Just to see if I could keep it steady.

 

 
Grevillea.

 One more shot of the Brachychiton acerifolius but this time for the plane. Turns out that's a China Southern Airlines aircraft, specifically a Boeing 777-300ER. Maybe Elaine Chao was on board, returning to her residence in Washington, D.C. to check on the home remodeling efforts. 

 This structure is apparently a vertical architectural sundial, designed to cast a shadow onto the building's surface to indicate the time based on the sun's position. The image was taken at 9:13 AM. I must be missing something.

 The star subject of the day. This is a red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) and I believe it's a female. I'm pretty sure this is one of my regulars over at least the past few years. I would take a picture and then move up 10-15 yards at a time. Around the third image down she was very aware of my movement.

 These shots are of her mate. Red-tailed hawks are strictly monogamous and typically mate for life.

The common raven or northern raven (Corvus corax), also a couple that generally mates for life. 

 Northern mockingbird. There's always a mockingbird.

This is a Pepsis mildei, the tarantula hawk wasp. I took pictures of one back in September in this same location. These wasps are known for having one of the most painful stings of any insect, however, they are generally docile and primarily feed on nectar from flowers like milkweed. This appears to be a female. I chose to keep my distance this time.

 

 Knocking at Your Back Door (Deep Purple)

 

 

 

Today's walk report: The 4th of July

The 4th of July, another American holiday that has lost its way. Independence Day was designed to honor a government of, by, and for the people, not a system that serves the interests of the powerful few. When you vote, please cast your ballot not only as a personal choice for the present, but as a legacy left for the future. Thank you.  

Today's walk was mostly refreshing. Two weeks ago, I came to a rather abrupt conclusion that my first molar, lower left, tooth number 19, was trying to kill me and it needed to go away. Nothing is easy anymore; one has to navigate a hyper-specialized and fragmented, bloated, multi-layered bureaucracy before the task at hand is accomplished. Instead of just paying a professional to do a straightforward job, you have to deal with a middleman, a coordinator, a pre-auth specialist, an evaluator, and an app interface. It is a completely exhausting shell game. However, on Thursday, I was able to get an oral surgeon’s evaluation on tooth #19, and within 2.5 hours, I was back in that very office, having my jaw numbed out and the tooth pulled. That was dental appointment number 4 in 9 days. I am currently in extraction recovery. 

Yep, no tooth behind it either, and see that root canal post inside #19; that's about 20 years old, and that dental visit is a bizarre story in and of itself. Just a few days before that little installation, there was a late-night mission to extract two impacted wisdom teeth with reckless abandon. There was no hyper-specialized navigation, and there was no oral surgeon, just an intense Operation Midnight Forceps with a “family” dentist.

The dark shadow located directly under the body of the tooth, right in the "fork" where the roots split apart, is a furcation radiolucency. It indicates bone loss, which is typically caused by an infection originating from the tooth's nerve. This wasn't rocket science, but it took another 8 days of that multi-layered bureaucracy to get the thing out of my mouth. The entire process certainly amplified my relief once it was over.

Meanwhile, here are some photos taken on today's very quiet, very peaceful and mostly pain free walk.

Saturday, July 4th.

Acanthus mollis, commonly known as bear's breeches, sea dock, bear's foot plant, sea holly, gator plant or oyster plant.

There were a few female hummingbirds constantly chasing each other away. I didn't get more than a second or two of one landing on something for a photo.

 Aquilegia × hybrida (columbine hybrids). Bred by crossing native columbines, they are famous for their upward- or outward-facing, star-like flowers and long, delicate nectar spurs. 

 This scene ended up altering much of the planned walk. Here I'm within just a few feet of where I was assaulted by an evil pine cone on April 26th. That is squirrel munched pomegranate on the asphalt and that indicated to me that today was a good day to swipe some pomegranates. The campus doesn't do anything with the fruit, only rats, racoons and squirrels take advantage. 

 I walked another 1/4 mile over to the botanical garden to see if any photo ops jumped out over there but was mostly thinking about how I might be able to gather and carry enough pomegranates back to my car to make it matter. The idea is to masticate the fruit for some juice. My car was parked 1/2 mile away from pomegranate row.

In the garden...

The house finch (Haemorhous mexicanus). House finches also apparently like pomegranates.

 Nuttall's woodpecker (Picoides nuttallii) is a species of woodpecker named after naturalist Thomas Nuttall in 1843, because Thomas thought he was really that important. They are found in oak woodlands of California and are similar to the ladder-backed woodpecker in both genetics and appearance.

 On my way back to the pomegranates, I started looking in campus trash cans for a convenient and hopefully relatively clean bag of some sort for my scoring some Punica granatum. I couldn't believe my luck, it even has a handle.

Your mouth is your religion
You put your faith in a hole like that?
You put your trust and your belief
Above your jaw, and no relief
Have I found

Today's walk report: Of the New Day

 One of the more pleasant walks I've had of late. I took my time and sat around a bunch. I was waiting for something to come to me, nothing did, so I sat around with my self. 

Saturday, June 27th. 

Here are some pictures that were taken today. 

An almost blindingly pink bougainvillea.  

 Baja fairy duster.

 Pelargonium peltatum.

 Megawatt Rose Green Leaf Begonia.

 Monarch caterpillar on Narrowleaf milkweed. Sorry, it's the butt end of it.

 Bee on Narrowleaf milkweed. 

 Achillea millefolium ‘Pink Grapefruit’ (Yarrow).

 This is probably a feather from a Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus). Could be from a red-tailed hawk but I'm voting owl. 

 Kapok tree or or silk-cotton tree (Ceiba pentandra). 

 Tecoma stans.

 Here's a Tecoma stans, taken in the side yard, that I grew from seed. I'm pretty sure the seeds were germinated during the COVID shutdown. I have two others, still  in 20 oz red party cups, that hatched at the same time. The seeds came from a now very large, nursery-bought Tecoma stans, probably 2012-13. The other one is in front of the house next to a desert willow. Tecoma stans is a prolific seed producer. After flowering, it forms long, slender bean-like pods that are packed with dozens of winged, easy-to-germinate seeds. Fortunately, I haven't had an issue with self-seeded offspring. I'm still trying to get this unit to grow the way I like it to.

 Blue palo verde. 

I was sitting on a bench, and this tree squirrel came racing down the trunk of that olive tree. When it got to the ground, I made a noise like a ratchet wrench. The squirrel scooted back up the tree, turned around, and I took this picture. It ultimately went where it wanted to go, as squirrels always do.

 
Desert willow flowers.

 The Flame bottletree (Brachychiton acerifolius) is still flaming away.

 I spooked three mourning doves that were unseen on the ground as I walked up a path. This was the only one that wanted to pose. Still a young squab. 

 Today's most cooperative subject. This is either an immature male or a female Allen's hummingbird. I'm voting male on this.

A nod is as good as a wink.

Bees on Eucalyptus orbifolia. 

 The Eucalyptus globulus is where I thought I was going to find hummingbirds. It was gray out and still a little chilly. I didn't see many hummingbirds. I didn't see a single butterfly.

 This is a second immature male. This is part of the reason I think both birds were male. There was some territorial competition going on.

 I was sitting on a bench in front of these rocks, thinking about what doesn't seem that long ago, where I would balance myself on these rocks to get closer to that grevillea behind. I can't imagine doing that now. It was dumb then. That's d-u-m-b. Don't forget the "B".

Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium, synonyms including Gnaphalium obtusifolium and Pseudognaphalium saxicola. Common names include old field balsam, rabbit tobacco, sweet everlasting and life everlasting.

 Sorry, I'm working on my Master's Degree.

 Teenage ground squirrel. I told it not to go there and it climbed back down.

 Okay, wait... she's getting ready to retire? 

Walk away from what you love
And all your people
Move into fog
And live again on the new day