Today's walk report: 081421

 Smoky sunrise. 

Yesterday morning's neighborhood walk had me out the door about 20 minutes before sunrise. Morning light was slowly fading in and all of the cars out on the streets still had their headlights on. By the time the sun was rising I had a line of houses and trees obscuring much of the sunrise but about a mile in I realized, it's pretty smoky out here. I was going for a longer walk but once the words, not healthy went through my head I decided to cut it short. I ended up walking about 2.2 miles. Today the plan was to drive part way to the local botanical garden and hoof it the rest of the way. Since I was waiting for more light and driving part way departure time was late enough for me to see the sunrise from my kitchen windows. Brown filtered skies. Although, this time, I really didn't smell smoke while I was out.

I'm going to assume smoke coming my way is from the Antonio Fire which is about 65 miles east of here just west of Mount Baldy, below Mount San Antonio and has already been burning for 10 days. 

Here's the sad news from Cal Fires latest Tweet, a few hours ago...

10,382 firefighters/personnel continue to make progress on the 10 large wildfires that are currently burning in CA. In total the wildfires this year have burned over 1 million acres.

As it turns out the air quality index (AQI) was and remains pretty good where I am with a forecast of moderate. Nevertheless, I chose to only walk about a mile and a half today, not take the evil stairs and not hang out on the campus too long. It also seemed apparent and was confirmed on my exit walk back to the car that some classes were about to take place on the campus. I wasn't encouraged to hang around a bunch of college students. 

Here were some quick shots.

Male Anna's hummingbird, Dusty, was busy again chasing intruders. This time I wasn't seeing Selasphorus rufus as far as I could tell. It seems a little too early for them to migrate. They usually leave about the same time the Salvia darcyi gets cut back which is late October/early November. Dusty's main competitor today was a male Selasphorus sasin who was just getting his adult plumage.

Here's Dusty.

 Here's his Selasphorus sasin (Allen's hummingbird) intruder. Iridescent gorget feathers were showing, I just missed that shot, because somebody had to chase him away. I also witnessed a moment where this bird was courting a female, then they both got chased away.

Also competing for Salvia darcyi nectar have been numerous carpenter bees. Almost every time I've arrived there are just a couple but as soon as it warms up a bit they're everywhere. They're big you know, sometimes you think it's a hummingbird when off in a peripheral view.

 Another mourning dove in a familiar spot and oh what a difference a change in angle and lighting can make.

That's it!