Today's walk report: 120114, rainy days and Mondays

Monday, December 1, 2014.

It looks like rain, fact is, it's been raining on and off for a couple of nights and a day now and we've got a pretty decent storm coming in tomorrow--but it looks like the fringes are already here and it's already dark outside. So... no walk today and instead I bring you these images from the last couple of weeks. These photos were taken from 112114 to 113014 and are, for the most part, randomly ordered.

A hoverfly enjoys an early bloom, Eschscholzia californica (California poppy).

Yarrow, died back.

A black-chinned hummingbird on Aloe maculata.

An empty Alyogyne huegelii seedpod.

This black phoebe (Sayornis nigricans) was fluttering between this desert willow and the pond, taking a bath below.

Don't be fooled the spines are in there.

Female green lynx spider.

A graveyard for palo verde flowers.

Some cotyledons.

Vanessa cardui, near the front door.

Vanessa cardui on lantana.

Vanessa cardui on lantana.

This was a great macro find, well, it was for the photo aspect... not so much for setting up the shot.

This is what you see when you approach this wormy cactus. I was both surprised  and excited to see just how much beauty was up close.

The unfortunate side of getting down on the ground to take pictures of the tiny pink flowers was this... It was buried unseen in the gravel on your left. I put most of my weight onto this with my right palm. I then hollered for the lovely nurse Docken to assist. Both going in and pulling them out, these spines were shockingly painful.

Senna bicapsularis.

Senna bicapsularis.

More tiny spines.

Water flower.

Yellow rumped warbler in a desert willow.

Hairlike spines.

This was another delightful surprised once view with a Canon 60mm macro lens. One could barely tell there were flowers here with the naked eye and it was certainly a pleasant surprise to see how pretty they were. I believe the plant is some type of sedum.

Throw in a tiny black ant (Monomorium minimum) for measure. These worker black ants measure 1-2mm.

We ended up walking in the rain in Sunday, 113014 with cameras, primarily to get the above photo of the wormy cactus. The forecast for the day had called for light to no rain, we ended up with .66" which was .16" more than we had so far for the season.

Meanwhile, it's now noon, 120214 and it has been raining since about 6 am, already adding an additional .5" of rain and this is supposed to continue into tomorrow. We need it badly, unfortunately, we don't really have the resources to harvest the rainwater.