The Odd Sock: Weekend walk report: monarchs in the making

Walks and picture taking along the way for Saturday, June the 3rd and Sunday, June the 4th, 2023.

Saturday. June 3rd

It was AM during the seven o'clock hour, about 55º f and there was a strange, brightly glowing orb high in the sky, almost white and only slightly filtered a brownish-orange from tropospheric pollution. Where did it come from and why was it there? Suddenly a distant recollection surfaced, oh yeah, the sun. Nous sommes du soleil, we love when we play.

First, I need to mention Canada goose, Kuppi, she was absent from her nesting area. Without being too specific I'll just say her eggs didn't make it. Fortunately. in a way, they weren't even close. I kind of thought from the beginning that her nest was in the wrong place and was too exposed. I was also bothered from the get-go that her mate was so far off. I know from experience that males can be especially aggressive as they protect their mate and their eggs, yet Kuppi's mate was 100s of yards away. On Saturday he was also nowhere to be found. If you don't know what I'm talking about, start here and work your way back to today's post.

Onto the garden...

These wild roses are new to the front entrance of the garden. The wild roses just west of here, in the California natives, Salvia portion of the garden, have expanded a lot since I first started coming here, without human intervention. Although, I suspect these were planned and planted by the garden curator perhaps as recently as last fall.

Falling palo verde flowers skewered by cactus plants below.

I've been checking the narrowleaf milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis) for at least a few weeks for signs of monarch caterpillars and on Saturday I found several, without looking too hard.

I didn't notice the green blob of poop until I got home.

Dropped it.

Since my back was killing me I didn't make a huge effort in checking for caterpillars. I counted 5, all in what has been the first and foremost location of Asclepias fascicularis plants. While being the oldest, it's no longer the largest patch of milkweed inside the garden.

Yerba mansa (Anemopsis californica), growing robustly near the pond.

I was trying to get a picture of male Calypte anna hummingbird, Dusty inside of these dying back Tagetes lemmonii plants and this American rosefinch caused him to fly off. He was also busy defending his territory from other hummingbirds.

Despite my lower back giving me a bunch of grief I decided I needed to get some walking in. I wasn't quite sure what was going on activity-wise on the campus but my spidey sense was telling me something was about to happen. Plus there were LA County Sheriff cadets all over the campus. That is not normal.

It's a Phazer! This guy did not have to worry about that 8 MPH speed limit. He was actually moving along slower than I was walking.

As I worked my way around my regular lower campus loop, I approached two cadets under a small event tent and asked what was happening. They had what I surmised was about 500 plastic bottles of water stacked behind them. I was told a 5K walk/run was about to take place. Turns out it was an annual event for Region North of the Los Angeles Unified School District and that encompasses 248 schools and 140,000 students. I decided it was a good time to leave. As I was exiting the campus a long line of yellow school buses were pouring in.

Back home as I was selecting and editing images for this portion of the walk report, I looked out the windows into my backyard and saw a pair of monarch butterflies, how appropriate.

Of course when stuff like that happens the photo op is usually over by the time I get outside. They mostly hovered overhead and taunted me until they flew off but I managed to get a couple of shots off. There was also a giant swallowtail, that one I missed entirely.

These two shots were taken on April 21st. Same butterfly in both pictures. The first image is on Echium candicans flowers and the second is on one of several ficus trees that borders my patio.

Sunday. June 4th

That crazy glowing orb that was high in the sky yesterday was gone again this morning. Although it's out now, mid-day.

Here are pictures taken on this quiet Sunday.

I'm not sure on this one. Female Selasphorus rufus and Selasphorus sasin hummingbirds look a lot alike. But since we're inside of the Selasphorus rufus migration into this area and when they're here there are usually quite a few, I'm gonna vote for rufous hummingbird on this one. Also, these Salvia darcyi flowers are what they are typically attracted to in the garden.

This palo verde tree would probably have been startling to be next to when this happened. This is very close to the path into the garden. It appears the large branch fell hard enough to break that other branch.

Today I got a few shots off of male Calypte anna hummingbird, Dusty but it was quite dim on the lighting front and I was having a very difficult time getting the camera to focus.

Here's Calypte anna hummingbird, Dusty high up inside a California bay tree. There's a female Selasphorus rufus slightly above him to my right (not pictured) and a female Calypte anna hummingbird looking up at him from down below.

Here's the female Calypte anna.

Here's a female Selasphorus rufus. You see that red dot? Yep, that's a laser. Don't be messing with Selasphorus rufus.

A larger crop of Salvia darcyi.

Today I counted seven monarch caterpillars.

These two desert cottontails seemed to be guarding the third bunny while it was eating. Of course I had to walk over there and mess it all up.

But I wanted to check out what is currently the largest patch of milkweed . I scoped out these plants for several minutes and didn't see any monarch caterpillars. This walkway is the evolution walk, those imprints in the cement represent fossils on a prehistoric timeline.