Docken and I walked and talked, both of us braving strong winds in our respective locales. Thank you Dockie!
Picture taking was not a breeze. Here's what I decided to share...
I'm pretty sure this is the same common raven I took pictures of on November 13th. However, today he wasn't nearly as cooperative.
After I followed the raven around for awhile and clearly realized he wasn't interested in my pursuit, I decided to put in a walk and then take the car up the hill to look for other flying things. The winds were so strong atop the hill that I struggled at one point to open my car door. Walking under tall trees did not seem like a great idea.
I'm also fairly certain that this common raven is one of the ravens, out of the two pairs of ravens, I photographed in the same location on October 23rd. I mis-ID'd those birds as crows in that post and have since corrected. I also visited these ravens on November 20th and gave them a bunch of dry cat food and cat treats. They intently watched me throwing it down, circling above me in the process. They were also busy chasing the same red-tailed hawk I saw today. After the cat food offer on the 20th I waited in my car for several minutes to see if they'd return to partake but I got bored and went home. Besides, I don't find the car to be the most comfortable seating engagement.
This raven circled me several times.It came quite close. I had the feeling it recognized me. It's the cat food dude! The wind made photos especially difficult and on a couple of passes the bird was too close to effectively get into frame.
I didn't get great images of the hawk either, they too glide so much faster on the currents of the wind but here was the obvious tell that I was definitely dealing with the same hawk I saw on the 20th. It's the damage to the left wing, Sorry, pictures from the 20th weren't up to par for posting here.
That's all I got. Here's a Space Turkey to bid you farewell...
I just read at The Cornell Lab of Ornithology website, "Common Ravens are entirely black, right down to the legs, eyes, and beak." Really? Are you sure? Do you see a range of blues and purples? I do. Their feathers are highly iridescent. They gather and mirror the light and the color of the world around them.
November 8, Tuesday was Election Day here in the U.S., also, local to me and a lot of California, it rained. Here at home I got 1.45" of very welcomed rainfall but there was a dilemma, I needed a major distraction or two to keep me away from election (too early to tell) news while sequestered indoors.
Monday evening, November 7th, I turned the television off, closed my iPad, put music on and set-up preparation to continue the project known as Once Upon a Walk Report (OUaWR) which began on January 24, 2021. There's a ridiculously detailed explanation for this project on that first post. What I didn't mention there was it was also a distraction from all things Covid and the rather reclusive approach I took and quite honestly am still taking to Covid, albeit to a much lesser degree.
Here's the deal about this blog. Part of the deal anyway. For the most part I treat this as a journal, I refer back to posts here all the time for what, where, when and why. A much smaller expression of what's happening here is my awareness that I'm sharing publicly. There is a need to balance the personal journal side of what's expressed and my passion to share images I've taken which I find pretty, charming, cute or that tell a story. I share those with people who mostly stumble upon them. It's a pleasure of and for my imagination.
The last episode, OUaWR Part Eleven, I explained, I'm not too thrilled about delving into folder 16 which contains 8,743 images from April 2, 2017 through October 29, 2017 but it will get done. Out of the 8,743 images I kept 2,791, a smidgen under 32%. Quite a bit of the elimination process is merely due to redundancy. Out of those kept I selected 86 images to post here. That number may change.
Images in folder 16 started April 2, 2017 but I didn't choose any images up until I hit April 5. They are from a combination of walks and from the garden at home (mostly wildflowers). I'm simply dropping these in by the date taken. They are otherwise ordered by filename. I may or may not provide a description. Let's find out!
040517 Vanessa cardui butterfly on Echium candicans, the pride of Madeira. Plus what turned out to be a failed attempt at the garden to establish some Osteospermum. I think the bunnies ate them all.
040717
Centaurea cyanus, AKA, bachelor buttons. This was taken at night with a light ring.
Linum grandiflorum.
040817
The same Centaurea cyanus as above, taken the next morning.
Echinopsis candicans.
There's always a mockingbird. Flowers are Alyogyne huegelii.
040917
041017
041117
Papaver rhoeas.
041217
Bearded iris.
Note the assassin bug photobombing on the Papaver rhoeas.
Eschscholzia californica, the California poppy.
041417
Papilio rutulus, the western tiger swallowtail.
041517
Parkinsonia florida, the blue palo verde tree.
041617
There's a bee and a ladybug.
Bee gone, the ladybug stayed.
041717
The backyard was a wildflower jungle in the spring of 2017. This is a three image panorama.
041817 (my birthday) This first image is a male Calypte anna hummingbird on a young Sequoia tree. For the life of me I could never understand why the local botanical garden kept trying to establish Sequoia trees in the San Fernando Valley. This is a subtropical/hot-summer Mediterranean climate, with long, hot and dry summers. Winters are typically short and warm, with chilly nights and sporadic rainfall. Not the place for Sequoia sempervirens.
042117 The ducks, I'm not going to get into the long sorted story of these ducks. Refer back to my late April, 2017 posts if you want to know more. Docken and I loved these ducks, Mom and dad were even made our namesakes. The pictures are for the fond memories we have of these precious Anas platyrhynchos, dabbling ducks.
042217 I kept 68 pictures from April 22. Surprise... they were all of the ducks. I suspect Docken has better pictures of the ducks than I do.
042317 When Docken and I arrived at the garden on the 23rd we found Docken duck huddled over her baby ducklings and she looked concerned.
Here was the reason for her concern.
As I recall, I chased the egret away while Docken helped mama duck stand guard over the babies. Shortly thereafter mom gave them the all clear.
Docken dispersed wild bird food for the family.
I went looking for some other pictures to take.
042417
042717
Agraulis vanillae on Salvia clevelandii. Clarkia unguiculata is the background.
Delphinium, larkspur.
043017
Another Delphinium.
050717
Nolina nelsonii.
051317
052017
052117 I'm pretty sure we visited them everyday we could.
052717
052817
Melaleuca nesophila, Pink-Melaleuca.
052917 I have a lot of pictures of this young red-tailed hawk. It was hanging out on the traffic light for the largest (there are only two) of the metered intersections on walks from home to the local garden.
Here comes summer. While I saved 134 images from June and July they were mostly "gardening experiments" and didn't make the cut for this post. The botanical garden also starts dying back quickly come June.
072917 Docken was making friends with scrub jays in the garden. They would go hide the almonds and comeback for more. This bird is probably just about mid-way into its annual molt.
080617 At least the Leptotes marina butterflies are mating. The dragonfly is a blue darner and I got about a dozen shots of it hovering right in that spot. Usually they drive you crazy trying to track them.
091617 No ID dragonfly.
091717 This ground squirrel was munching away on the Baja fairy duster (Calliandra californica) flowers and the Leptotes marina butterflies probably didn't appreciate that. It is a host plant for the Marine Blue caterpillar (Leptotes marina).
092317 This is some type of sedum, I have an ID somewhere. I believe the dragonfly is a Variegated Meadowhawk (Sympetrum corruptum).
100117 These images or variations thereof, were part of a post entitled, Become, Seem, Appear... As was the above sedum.
101517 Phoebis sennae, the cloudless sulphur.
102217 Junonia coenia, the common buckeye.
That's all and it only took me a little over four days. I believe this is the most image prolific post I've ever done. I hope you made it to the end. Thanks for looking whoever you are and wherever you’re from.
Taken, taken, so easily To pass into glass reality Transformer, transferring energy
