I was able to get some "extra" sleep in this morning after finally finding the snooze button on the 4:00 a.m. Lucy the Cat alarm clock. She got brushed in my lap with my eyes closed until she decided she was okay to go back to her fort in the adjacent nightstand. I got up for coffee at 7:00. The scattered clouds outside of my upper kitchen windows looked spectacular, and I decided to get crankin' with the caffeine, shower, and stuff, and I'd head out in the car for my walk. As mentioned numerous times, I like to get about 1/2 mile out of the neighborhood before I start my walk. A short drive to the Launching Pad, so to speak. This morning, my car thought otherwise. I knew the battery was being temperamental yesterday, making a click, err... err... sound as the engine starts. In fact, I made sure my NOCO jump starter was fully charged once I got home. I'm pretty sure it was 2021 when I last replaced the battery.
Sure enough, this morning, the car battery was thoroughly depleted, and I decided not to mess with the NOCO and hoof it from home instead. The revised game plan was to walk to at least the nearby arboretum, see how much territory I cared to cover, and then call Triple A, battery service, once I got home. It was about 73º to 80º with a relative humidity of 55% to 45% from start to finish. The Canadian Humidex calculator called it little or no discomfort. Well, yeah, maybe if you're sitting still. I called it not awful. The walk was a little longer than yesterday's walk and measured out at 2.61 miles.
I didn't take many pictures.
First stop, heading for the arboretum. This is my weather report shot.
From there I skipped any formalities in the arboretum and headed for the botanical garden. Photo to photo, for the loop I took, that's 0.44 miles apart.
I was sitting on a bench there, chatting with the junior garden/arboretum curator. I ended up bringing up the cycad trunk mentioned in yesterday's walk report. He said they think that's the work of rats. If they ate it... They're dead. A possible alternative answer is they aren't eating, they're only shredding and then using the fiber for nesting material.
After the rest on the bench and the chat I headed back home. This spot is about 300 yards from where I usually park my car. I was shooting above houses here.
This kitty was approximately 320 yards from me stepping back inside my house. I measure walks on Google Earth with the ruler tool. It calculates the ground distance using geodesic measurement on the WGS 84 ellipsoid model—accounting for the earth’s curvature to give precise, down-to-the-foot mileage (or kilometers, meters, yards, feet, inches, nautical miles and smoots) for every detour.
An Auto Club (contracted) battery service dude was at my house 10 minutes after I placed the call and within another 20 minutes I had a new battery plus he made sure my tires were properly inflated (they weren't beforehand).
Once again, helping me with this report was the lovely Junimoon.
Out walking at 66.2º F and back in my car coming home at 76.6º, the excursion duration was 70 minutes and it was quite a pleasant little walk.
Last week I mentioned a short conversation I had with a gentleman walking his three dogs and we bumped into each other again shortly before I got to the local college campus. My guess is he's a few years older than I am. He didn't remember me at first. I think the dogs did. I asked if I could take a picture of the dogs but discovered I still had my camera set for some macro tripod shots I took indoors, manual mode, with the shutter set for "self timer, 2 seconds." For the life of me, in the bright sun and with distance glasses on, I fumbled resetting the camera and gave up. Here's the picture I ended up taking.
I actually like the photo. I think it captured the experience perfectly.
Pink evening primrose (Oenothera speciosa, also called pink ladies or Mexican evening primrose). I was kind of surprised to see them blooming again so late in September.
Hentz Orbweaver (Neoscona crucifera), which is also widely known as the Spotted Orbweaver or Barn Spider. This. Was. Difficult. Not for the spider but for the ground I was walking on. This was in the arboretum but campus wide they use large to sometimes very large hard wood arborist mulch and it's often piled on very thick. Stepping over to the spider on uneven ground to begin with, looking up with a close-up lens on top of a 70-300 mm lens, arms outstretched (focus is at 500 mm, 19.68"), the mulch was very unpredictable. Plus, I don't have the greatest sense for balance, never have.
Belly shot. It's a grumpy face.
This is a cycad trunk. This had to be the work of a human. Why? I have no idea. This is not how you remove pups from a cycad. Cycads contain powerful natural toxins—primarily cycasin and BMAA (β-methylamino-L-alanine)—that cause severe liver damage, neurological decline, and gastrointestinal failure in humans and animals. While cycad toxins are dangerous in nature, scientists use them in medical research to study neurodegenerative diseases, map biological pathways, and explore anticancer treatments. In science, highly specific toxins are frequently repurposed as "molecular scalpels" to intentionally disrupt cells in controlled environments. Honestly? I don't want to know.
Here's an unmolested example.
Muskogee Crape Myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica x fauriei 'Muskogee').
Here's a pile of the arborist mulch, just waiting for an opportunity to get under my feet.
The mulch up close.
This was my first warning sign. Within 10-minites of my leaving campus the race began. This was a family event, hosted by the Kidneys Quest Foundation.
I was informed many years ago that this really isn't actually accurate in the job market. It's apparently no longer true about what you know but rather who you know. Just look at the current Republican administration if you want proof of this.
Onto the botanical garden. I'm finally seeing male Calypte anna hummingbirds again. Anna’s hummingbirds don’t migrate but rather practice altitudinal and microclimate shifting, plus they've been molting. Maybe it's an ego thing. A few days ago I did a search in this very blog on the word, "autumn" and found that I was also complaining about the summer lacking in hummingbirds, late summer of 2013.
This little dude is still looking scruffy from his molt.
Just one open flower again, Cereus peruvianus.
Moments later a female Calypte anna showed up in the same spot.
Kind of mysterious.
They were still putting up balloons very close to start time.
On my way back to my car. Posted at the only crosswalk I need to wait for a walk signal. Does this come across as creepy to anyone other than me?
"I've got troubles of my own, " I said "And you can't help me out, so Take your meditations and your preparations And ram it up your snout"
Frank Zappa, Cosmik Debris
Meanwhile...
Can I?
Dabadabado Do-da Mde-de (Hep Do-eh) Kapatapada Do-vah Do Deh (Hep Do-ah) Pakatebedoh Umm-be Peh Be-eh Be-eh Be-eh (Hep Do-ah, Hep Do-eh) We have heaven (Hep Do-ah, Hep Do-eh, Hep Do-ah, Hep Do-eh)
Autumn, it's right around the corner, and I couldn't be more pleased. This morning, with the bedroom window open, I was awoken by an almost forgotten visitor around 4:30 a.m.: the local great horned owl. It was making a deep, rhythmic series of hoots that sounds like the phrase, "Who's awake? Me, too!" Their vocal activity ebbs and flows with the season. During late spring and summer, when young fledglings are dispersing and food is abundant, adults become relatively quiet to avoid drawing unwanted attention to themselves or their juveniles. As autumn approaches, their calling picks up dramatically as they re-establish boundaries, pair-bond, and prepare for their winter breeding season.
Then I checked the temperature outside, 57º F... sweet! Even with the window open evenings and two fans blowing, this house has been like a terrarium, and during the day, the constant roar of a portable A/C unit in a small bedroom acts as a perfect amplifier, ensuring every rattle and vibration bounces directly off the walls and into my brain.
Thursday's walk was two miles but only because I had no idea I would feel as good as I did and really hadn't allowed the time for a longer trek. Friday, I didn't walk at all because I felt like absolute crap. It was post-walk yard work catching up to me on Friday. This was mostly my scraping away 100s, (!!) of common storksbill seedlings with too short of a shovel. Storkbill is my plant nemesis, it is the primary invasive that has interrupted my wildflower propagation on the property. Here's what things looked like in the spring of 2016. Most of what you see is Dimorphotheca sinuata flowers. Many of those palm trees in the background are gone now, while too many still remain. I really miss this...
Today, Saturday, September 19th, I felt mostly amazing. The temperature for the 64 minutes I was out and about went from 65º to 67º. I found it a little humid with a relative humidity as high as 76%, but that's kind of just me. I was also a tad overdressed, but I'm finding myself covering up more than I used to. I've said for over 40 years now, the sun is not our friend. Thinking long-sleeves and digging through a closet, I had almost forgotten about another in my collection of Larks' Tongues in Aspic shirts. While that title might sound a little disgusting, the album, single handedly, changed how I listen to music. I can still picture exactly where and when I first listened to LTiA in 1973.
There wasn't much on the photo front. Once again, I mostly walked. I did have a pleasant but brief conversation with a gentleman walking his three dogs in the arboretum. We talked about aging pets and recent kittens. Heading back to my car and at campus central (this is a Jr. College), I ended up helping an elderly woman (hey, she was older than I am) find her classroom. A Persian lady, she hardly spoke a word of English. Turns out she was looking for her ESL (English as a Second Language) class. I ended up flagging down a campus sheriff deputy, gave him the room number, and asked which building it was. I know the names of the buildings, but I'm not too keen on building and room numbers. All of the buildings surrounding the botanical garden, and that's where we were, are named after trees. She was looking for the Birch building, so I took her there and along the way pointed to the names, Elm and Birch, etc., explaining that these are types of trees. She had no idea what I was babbling about. I opened the door, and introduced her to the instructor. So to speak. My good deed for the day.Here are some pictures from today...
Jacaranda. I took a quick shot only because I was surprised to see blooms. I thought Jacaranda trees typically bloom from late April to mid-June in SoCal.
This Coreopsis verticillata plant again. I mentioned I wanted to swipe some seeds from it but apparently it's a hybrid specialized cultivar (Moonbeam). 'Moonbeam' is a sterile cultivar that does not produce viable seeds. Online pricing seems a bit steep for 3" pots.
Salvia 'Amistad' (Friendship Sage).
Verbena bonariensis.
Last week I wrote about Washingtonia robusta, AKA, Mexican fan palm seedlings growing everywhere. The taller trees are Washingtonia robusta and you can see why 1,000s of these popping up randomly might be a problem, The lower palms are Syagrus romanzoffiana. I haven't looked into those on the invasive species lists.
More importantly, I took these images to show what the lovely fall-like morning I was enjoying looked like.
I keep telling them... It's gonna be a lot more difficult to get out than it was to get in.
Drimia maritima. Taken in haste.
Tecomaria capensis.
Google says this is a Melaleuca. I was attracted to the dead below being superseded by new growth above.
This arbor has, for most of my 15+ years of witnessing it, been at least partly covered by Passiflora. For the last couple of years it hasn't been maintained. Google is telling me this is now Hardenbergia violacea, which I find unfortunate since Passiflora is most notably the primary larval host plant for the Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae). That's a favorite butterfly. Hardenbergia violacea is apparently the host to the common grass blue butterfly (Zizina labradus), native to Australia.
The Library and Learning Center clock has been about 7 minutes slow for well over a year. This picture was taken about three minutes before the woman asked me for directions to room 1109. Her class started at 9:00. Oops. You're tardy.
That's all I've got. Later in the day all of those pretty clouds disappeared and we hit a high of 89.5º F. The walk was 2.37 miles. This walk report was finished today, Sunday, September 20th because it was interrupted by Dodgers' baseball last night. Outside of my office windows, sunrise is creeping in, mostly cloudy, the sky was a soft purple.
"October - Autumn Song" from Tchaikovsky's "The Seasons"
And I took the picture of myself when this song came through my headphones...
A short walk, only about 1.25 miles, I got out later than I had planned. It was 71.4º with a relative humidity of 74%. Dew point was 62.2°F, which is considered humid and slightly sticky. I concur, although I might raise it a notch, from slightly to moderately. I mostly walked and only sat once to hang with a female Selasphorus sasin (Allen's) hummingbird I've been seeing for a couple of weeks now. She had her eyes out for another female. I didn't get a good look, but I suspect that was a female Calypte anna hummingbird I took photos of three weeks ago. They are competing for the territory around the same Hakea tree. This is in the Australian natives portion of the nearby botanical garden. Australian natives currently has the most flowering plants. Total time wandering around was 33 minutes.
Here are some photos taken today, Sunday, September, 13th.
The famous California Grumpy Bird, AKA, the California towhee (Melozone crissalis).
I've brought up this song here before. It was playing as I approached this Corvus corax, the common raven. In fact, I let the song play about 1.5 times. Somehow it got selected last night as I was removing duplicate songs from my phone.
Sing for me Sing for me You can come with me You can live with me Heal my soul Make me whole *The raven sings in a dream*
However, this raven wasn't singing, it was Tlock-Clonking. So I tlocked-clonked back. We had a splendid conversation. This is most likely a female raven.
When a raven makes a hollow "Tlock Clonk" or knocking sound, they are usually communicating territorial dominance, social bonding, or courtship display. I think she liked me.
Blue palo verde trees (Parkinsonia florida). Even near the end (🤞) of a blistering summer, you can almost always find a flower.
This is a Corvus corax feather. It looks oddly plunked in this spot. Perhaps someone put it there.
Lots of Salvia darcyi flowers remain in the California natives section of the garden but oddly again, no hummingbirds.
When I see one bird feather on the ground, I think, “A bird dropped a feather.” When I see several, I think, “Something dropped a bird.” These were some of many mourning dove (Zenaida macroura) feathers in the same spot. My guess would be a Cooper's hawk took one out. The most frequent hawk visitor I have seen in this garden is the Cooper's hawk (Accipiter cooperii).
Before you start feeling sorry for the mourning dove, here are some statistics. Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura): Millions of breeding doves live in California, making them the state's most abundant and widely distributed resident bird. National estimates place the U.S. population over 330 million. Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter cooperii): Counts are much lower—measured in thousands of nesting territories rather than millions of individuals. However, their regional numbers have rebounded significantly since mid-century pesticide bans (like DDT) and are now considered abundant across Southern California's urban zones. And, hey. Birds gotta eat. Maybe if we call the mourning dove a pigeon?
Appears as though the scuffle took out a small branch from some shrubbery.
And here's the female Allen's hummingbird I sat down with. We also talked a bunch. I call it my universal bird chirp. I press my lips tightly together and pull in some air, making a squeaky sound. It seemed to get her attention.
Same as the picture above but cropped in.
On the way back to my car, I was a little surprised at this, just a little. This heavily mulched area is right outside the fence for the campus baseball field. It was seriously graded with farm equipment not long ago. Nevertheless, these troublesome "weeds" have popped up everywhere. 100s of them. Any guesses as to what they are? Okay, time's up... They're clumps of young Washingtonia robusta, AKA, Mexican fan palm seedlings. That's right, these are baby palm trees. Within its first year, the plant will transition away from these grass-like blades and start producing its characteristic, armored, fan-shaped palm fronds. True to its nature, the Mexican fan palm grows incredibly fast. If left in place, it will quickly begin to develop a thick, trunked base. Local ecologists and organizations like the California Invasive Plant Council have officially classified Washingtonia robusta as an invasive risk with a "Moderate" alert rating. While they were famously planted by the tens of thousands in the early 20th century to create the iconic "California Dream" aesthetic, they have fast become an environmental headache across Southern California.
This is climate change, ladies and gentlemen, up close and personal. I have dug up 100s of these on my property alone. I grew up here, decades went by, and these palms were not self-seeding, but our climate has become much more tropical. Maybe some walk soon, I'll use my phone and do a walk report documenting some of the troublesome locations I am seeing real trees developing, like along cinder block walls and fences, cracks in streets and sidewalks, and in the front yards of people who seem completely unaware of their presence. Their famous 15-minute gardeners certainly aren't going to point them out.
