Once Upon a Walk Report - Part Twelve

 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!

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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.

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Centaurea cyanus, AKA, bachelor buttons. This was taken at night with a light ring.

Linum grandiflorum.

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The same Centaurea cyanus as above, taken the next morning.

Echinopsis candicans.

There's always a mockingbird. Flowers are Alyogyne huegelii.

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Papaver rhoeas.

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Bearded iris.

Note the assassin bug photobombing on the Papaver rhoeas.

Eschscholzia californica, the California poppy.

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Papilio rutulus, the western tiger swallowtail.

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Parkinsonia florida, the blue palo verde tree.

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There's a bee and a ladybug.

Bee gone, the ladybug stayed.

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The backyard was a wildflower jungle in the spring of 2017. This is a three image panorama.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Agraulis vanillae on Salvia clevelandii. Clarkia unguiculata is the background.

Delphinium, larkspur.

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Another Delphinium.

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Nolina nelsonii.

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052017

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I'm pretty sure we visited them everyday we could.

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Melaleuca nesophila, Pink-Melaleuca.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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No ID dragonfly.

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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).

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This is some type of sedum, I have an ID somewhere. I believe the dragonfly is a Variegated Meadowhawk (Sympetrum corruptum).

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These images or variations thereof, were part of a post entitled, Become, Seem, Appear... As was the above sedum.

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Phoebis sennae, the cloudless sulphur.

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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