Today's walk report: 062622

 Summer.

Remember when summer was bitchen? You know, "have a bitchen summer!" A colloquial statement when signing someone's yearbook around the age of puberty. Well, I'm here to announce that summer is not bitchen, at least not in my part of planet earth. It was only bitchen back then ‘cause you were getting out of school. Nope, summer sucks in inland SoCal, hot, dry and mostly miserable. The beach pretty much sucks too because UV radiation can kill you and it's crowded with all the people from the wretched valleys who are trying to escape. Also, there's no parking and it's dirty. Additionally, we've been in what now seems to be a forever drought and water is being rationed. We're all gonna die!

So, I went for a walk. It was a beautiful morning, you know, from about 6 to 8 AM. Here are some pictures.

This tiny California cottontail seemed to be enjoying leaves of the plentiful scarlet bugler (Penstemon centranthifolius) plants. The flowers are all dead because, again, it's summer.

The century plant (Agave americana) flowers are finally blooming.

A fabulous no-prize, never delivered, for anyone who can find the bee.

This picture is a special inclusion for Docken who was with me on the phone (thanks Doc) so she could see how large the alleged "pistachio tree" has gotten. My best guess is this is a Chinese pistache (Pistacia chinensis). Pistacia, part of the cashew family, are dioecious (like Cannabis) meaning you need both a male and a female tree to produce seed, in this case, pistachios. I have yet to see either male or female flowers on this tree. Both Docken and I are old enough to remember when this was a mere stick in the ground.

That tree, by the way, is the favorite place for the male Calypte anna hummingbird known as "Dusty" to hang out. Meanwhile, here's Dusty. Had I known that the background bokeh was going to be so stunning I would have tried to get some more images in this spot.

This cabbage white butterfly (Pieris rapae) was playing hard to get. This is the best I could do without stomping all over the verbena it was enjoying.

This little ground squirrel was quite honestly freaking me out. The closest moment we had, that I let it have, was when it came up to me while I was sitting on a bench and it touched its nose to my left sneaker. I'm pretty sure, had I allowed it, the tiny Sciuridae would have climbed up the leg of my Levis. And then what?

It simply would not stop following me, was it some sort of delayed imprint experience? "Are you my mother?" I finally ditched it, got one more picture of Dusty, did a lap around the garden and headed back to my car.

The entire walk was probably a little more than one and a half miles and took place over the course of almost exactly one hour. Shortly after 8:00 I could already feel the heat coming, even though it was only 72º F. Also, I had to get home and water. I'm not supposed to water between 9AM-4PM. Current temp, 93º and I expect it to hit 103º. 

Have a bitchen summer!

 

Today's walk report: 061922

 Last Sunday there was a walk and Docken tele-walked with me then as she did today (thank you, Dockie!) but last week there were only 28 pictures taken and they were all useless. I think I did a little better today. Here are the photos (out of 125)...

On my way into the campus I saw this guy seemingly a little perturbed that the inbound gate to the campus was closed. A lot of people just enter the the outbound gate (it's open, I know it doesn't appear to be) and maneuver over at the first break in the medium to the proper side. That's only about 45 yards or 41 meters in, however I suspect the turning radius on this Rolls would not have made that easy. I grew up around this campus, it was never gated shut here at the main entrance, in fact, there were no gates. I also remember a speed limit sign which read, 8 MPH. I guess they got fed up with all of that.

A couple 100 yards later I spotted this Cooper's hawk. I didn't get nearly as close as I would have liked to. In fact, I didn't realize this was a Cooper's until I got home.

Onto the garden...

This little cottontail was so tiny and still that from a greater distance than this shot I thought it was a rock.

It was quiet in the garden again today but of course there was male Calypte anna hummingbird, Dusty. There were, in fact, three male Anna's hummingbirds in the same general area this time. Dusty and one other seemed to be rather tolerant of each other. The third male was being chased away by both of them. I only took pictures of Dusty.

I'm not sleeping, I'm just resting my eyes!

Nearby, this female Calypte anna hummingbird was minding her own business. I took a few pictures of her last Sunday but they were horrible. Part of the probelm last week is I was wearing a new pair of sunglasses and shooting into shadowy areas is impossible with those glasses. Way too dark. For the most part the sun coming in at 7-8 AM is rather blinding so I like to keep them on if possible. The shrub is a Baja fairy duster (Calliandra californica).

The century plant (Agave americana) is still taking its sweet time opening flowers. 

 
I mentioned last week the basal rosette at the base of the plant is already dying back and with a 70-300 mm lens it was difficult getting a representational image of that. I forgot to bring a shorter lens again. This is a vertical panorama of two images. If you look carefully (please click the image) you can see that several of the spiny leaves are seriously drooping.  

I ended up wandering around quite a bit just to get some walking in. I haven't been over to this sort of park area in a while. They recently did some pruning on the trees and I think that was, at least in part, responsible for revealing this huge nest. This is a little over midway up the trees. The only thing I can figure is squirrels but this is absolutely massive. Squirrels may reuse nests multiple times but of all the actual nests and images of nests I've ever seen I've never seen anything quite like this.

Speaking of squirrels, back to the car and ready to drive home...

Thanks for looking! 

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”

~ Douglas Adams

Today's walk report: 061122

 Out a little earlier this Saturday since last week I seemed to be right on the fringe of students swarming the campus. Three is a swarm. Besides, yesterday it hit 102º F here and these days I don't care to entertain 82º. So, the prospect of people and high temps pushed me out the door at 7:20 AM and 67º. 

It was real quiet at the local botanical garden and the only campus activity I saw were the occasional jogger/walker who presumably were also trying to beat the heat. On the photo front it was a another day for male Calypte anna hummingbird, Dusty. He was once again engaged in chasing intruders from his domain. Docken was on the phone with me again. Thanks Docken!

Here are some pictures.

The same flowers with me creating a shadow to circumvent the bright sunlight.

Onto Dusty's territory...

I looped around the garden a couple of times but wasn't seeing much to move me into raising the camera. This ground squirrel reminded me of the one on May 29th pretty much in this same exact spot. It's not the same squirrel though unless there was some sort of battle since then. Notice the damage to the left ear.

Back to Dusty. He often took breaks from all of the chasing going on.

See? He's tired.

The Agave americana is still working on those flowers but the basal rosette at the base of the plant is starting to look a little sorry. The combination of the position of the sun and my not having the best choice of lenses precluded a photo, maybe next time. The plant, in flowering, is dying and I wonder how long it will be before this stalk becomes a liability.

On my way back to the car to head up the hill... It's often the case that the most creative and talented students are not the ones who do best in school. Unfortunately, we pigeonhole students with certain learning styles. We tend to tear children from self-expression and kill their motivation. To top things off now kids in the U.S. need to fear for their lives to get an education and socialize with friends.

Up the hill. In general, there's a lot of construction going on or about to take place on this campus so a whole bunch of where I'd normally walk around has been fenced off. I had a feeling these crows were going to take off before I got to the spot I really wanted to take a picture from and they did, one more step past this spot, they were off.

Still, I reflect,
This nervous wreck who stands before me
Can see as well,
Can surely tell that he's not yet free;
He can turn aside, but can no more ignore me
Than know which one of us is he,
Than tell what we are going to be,
Than know which one of us is me.*

* Mirror Images, Song by Peter Hammill

Today's walk report: 060522

 Dusty's Day.

I swear, I looked for other photo ops but male Calypte anna hummingbird Dusty was so obliging and not much else was presenting itself to me as particularly photo worthy in the time I had allotted so... Dusty is the star of the day! Another thing, about male Calypte anna hummingbirds, they will get to know you and become more comfortable with your presence than other hummingbirds. At least this is true of hummingbirds native to me. I've had good relationships with Selasphorus sasin (Allen's) hummingbirds too but they took a lot longer and there was never quite the same amount of rapport as I've had with male Calypte anna birds. Here are today's pictures...

First, I need to point out, I think I mis-ID'd this cactus genus yesterday. I wrote, Echinopsis. I think it's actually Cereus, specifically, Cereus stenogonus. If I'm still wrong, well, that's okay. Please keep in mind while I value nomenclature accuracy to a certain degree, I mostly don't care. I do care about the photos though.

Back to Dusty, he was very busy defending his territory today. There were several intruders this morning including another younger male Calypte anna. For the most part the territorial defense activity was more fun to watch with the camera down. Dusty typically took his breaks in a usual spot right in front of me and that's when clicks took place.

This is the young Calypte anna male intruder, hogging the Salvia darcyi flowers.

However, at least for awhile, Dusty remained rather chill about the whole thing.

Docken and I were on the phone again (thank you, Dockie) and she mentioned going up the hill, so I drove up the hill. Yes, weekends have become a drive/walk thing but let me point out I also have been going for early evening walks. Anyway, up the hill I'm seeing a lot of cars en-route. Turns out there was what appeared to be some sort of graduation pomp and circumstance at the theater on the top of the hill. I spent a fair amount of time strategizing how I was going to avoid people and also explore the hilltop. I did okay, however, this was the only event worthy of camera clicks for me... another battle between red-tailed hawks (two) and an American crow (one). I saw a higher level of aggression than I've typically witnessed from the hawks. One hawk was talons down above the crow several times. The right wing on that hawk looked like it may have seen some battles before. I will note, this area is near a spot where I've known red-tailed hawks to have nests for years. The tallest trees on the campus are down below. I'm pretty sure the crow was the intruder but it can go either way.

Here's the veteran hawk.

I wandered around a bit after this but once the birds left and people were becoming more plentiful I decided it was time to journey home and have some breakfast