Today's walk report: 052413

Turtle eggs...

Mostly pics.... So tired.

Revisiting the straw flowers. This is a 9 image focus stack.

Another Southwestern fence lizard. Male I believe.

Female Anna's hummingbird. I have not seen many Anna's hummingbirds since March. It's been mostly Allen's hummingbirds. This is a reversal of last year as I recall.

One more, same Anna's.



Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) on Agave americana, commonly known as the century plant.

Just a few of the 1,000s of flowers on the Agave ocahui stalk. The entire stalk is about 3m tall. These plants are monocarpic, once agaves flower they die and it typically takes years for them to flower.

I'm pretty sure this is the same red-tailed hawk I've taken pictures of twice before.

 

Taking off after something in the distance....

So I went to look and see what it was... some trouble with the eyesight or merely a practice run?

Then back up to another lamppost. When she (I just feel that it's a she) left this post she flew past me ridiculously close, around about my elbows. I have a very out of focus photo to prove it.

Meanwhile, this dove was watching on.

I spent most of the time watching this turtle (red-eared slider) laying her eggs. I observed 3 eggs come out and it seemed like a real serious effort. I was about 6' away. The oddest part to me was how far she was from the pond, it was easily 40 yards (36.57 m) and this ground is like rock. She's actually on the edge of a path for the garden and only about 10' away from a classroom door. Looking at everything between the pond and where she chose, it seemed about the worst place to me. But hey, I'm not a turtle. The mulch you see she must have kicked over from about a foot or so in front of her. It was pretty interesting to watch. Certainly more so than it will be here.