Weekend walk report: “Bring Out Your Dead”

 It's a joke. So far, this looks to only be Saturday, August 24th's walk report since I haven't even looked at my pictures from today, Sunday, August 25th. Today was a late start, a short walk and a dismal event on the photo front. Saturday, I walked into the local botanical garden and was immediately taken aback by how much of it was either dead or seriously dying back. So my first thought was... why not take pictures of dead stuff?

Starting off with the first dead stuff I saw entering the garden.

Rose hips, Rosa californica, the California wildrose, or California rose.

Pseudognaphalium californicum (California Everlasting).

Salvia leucophylla, purple sage or gray sage.

Salvia apiana, the Californian white sage, bee sage, or sacred sage.

Eriogonum fasciculatum is a species of wild buckwheat known by the common names California buckwheat and flat-topped buckwheat.

Onto the living.

This is the male Calypte anna hummingbird I've been calling Not Dusty. I decided to change his name to Dusty Jr. I'm reasonably certain, based on observation, my experience with this garden and having seen a few generations of "regulars," especially for this hummingbird habitat, that this is most probably the offspring of the famous male Anna's hummingbird, Dusty. I also thought that Not Dusty was sort of demeaning in a way. The flowers are Red Mountain Sage (Salvia darcyi).

 The moon, pretty dead, geologically active they say, I say poppycock! Waning gibbous phase is between a full moon and a half moon.

And onto my walk...

The goats. In the past I have approached the goats and it seemed they didn't want to have anything to do with my presence. This time, I would swear, they saw me and came running. Maybe I look like someone who provides for them, although it's apparent they take pretty good care of themselves. I'm on the road to the western edge of the campus. I'll be back.

Donkey #2. This donkey is typically pretty far off from me. You can see it under the pepper trees in the picture above. When I first started visiting this campus again in 2010 I first met the burros inside their pen and they were together. For the past several years I always see them in areas separated by fencing.

Donkey #1. This is about as close as I've been able to get in a long time.

Red-tailed hawk.

Turkey vulture. The turkey vulture is the most widespread of the New World vultures. This vulture is looking for something dead.

Nearing the end of the road and about to turn around. I decided to give it a go and attempted a panorama of the mourning doves hanging out.

Heading back. This is the same red-tailed hawk as shown above.

Where did everybody go?

Back to the goats. I picked favorites. These are my two favorites.

A young western fence lizard. This is my dirt!

Sunday, August 25th (today)

Again, it was a relatively short walk with very few pictures taken.

A mourning dove on a tower to some of the instruments at the weather station.

Monarch butterfly on a rose bush. I had walked up, down and side to side on the Braille Trail and not one picture.

I did a quick circle inside the botanical garden and then decided to head beck to my car. Here's Dusty Jr. high up in the Caesalpinia cacalaco tree.

Bonus shots! A giant swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes) in the backyard on Saturday. Currently I have very little room to navigate for photos in the backyard so I take whatever I can get. The flowers are Tithonia rotundafolia.

Bring out your dead!

Weekend walk report and backyard butterflies

 Pictures from this weekend's walks, Saturday, August 17th and Sunday (today), August 18th.

Saturday, August 17th

I covered much of the accessible campus this day, roughly 2.6 miles on the walk. I started with the Braille Trail arboretum side, then I wandered over to the botanical garden. From there I just sort of meandered around the lower campus until I drove up the hill and added about .6 miles circling the hilltop. It was not a very exciting day for taking pictures and weather-wise it was gray and gloomy, developing into hot and humid.

Amaryllis belladonna, the Jersey lily, belladonna-lily, naked-lady-lily, or March lily.

I'm glad I wasn't here for this eucalyptus tree falling. It also took out a big chunk of the neighboring pine tree. I wonder if it made a sound.

The no ID trees I reported on in my July 13th post. The flowers have bloomed. The trees are Franklinia alatamaha, commonly called the Franklin tree. They are native to the Altamaha River valley in the state of Georgia. It has been extinct in the wild since the early 19th century, but survives as a cultivated ornamental tree (thank you Wikipedia).

On my way to the botanical garden... and here I am. Male Calypte anna hummingbird, Not Dusty, spent some time with me and we had a nice conversation.

See, he's talking to me.

California buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum).

Here's a focus stack image I took of that same plant on June 29th, 2014. It was the first time I tried to do a focus stack across the the top of a large object.

Here's an idea of what the weather looked like, except it was much more dismal looking. Photo editing software has cut through quite a bit of haze.

Sunday (today), August 18th

Where there's smoke... I don't know where the fire was (is?) but it was really smoky outside of my house before I left and once I was at the local college campus, well, it was smoky there too. Enough so I decided to do a short walk of about 1.5 miles. That probably wasn't a great idea either.

Now, this is a Jr. College, meaning the students attending, for the most part are between the ages of 18 and 20. That puts the DOB for the younger students around 2006. The first iPhone came out in 2007. What do you think these kids think of this? How effectively do you think they could operate it? For one they'd have to remember a phone number other than their own. $.50 anywhere in the U.S.

 This is the same red-tailed hawk I photographed on July 27th. Does this sky look smoky?

The ancient car worshipers were cruising into the parking lot they use just next to the sidewalk I take for my western-end campus loop. From a distance I saw this woman talking to some gentleman on the sidewalk with what I assumed was a dog on a leash. I generally avoid stuff like this so I moved over to the opposite side of the street. Then I noticed it wasn't a dog at all but rather a beautiful Savannah cat. I excused myself asked the lady if it was okay if I took a picture.

That kitty was the loudest cat I've ever heard and it was really talkative. A little too big for my kitty companion taste.

Here are a couple of backyard butterflies from August 15th, the Gulf fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) and from August 18th , the giant swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes).