Today's walk report: After the storm and before the rain

 It's been raining, a lot. California is kind of a mess from snow and rain. In my stomping ground we're up to 26.06" of rain for the season. For comparison last season (2021-2022) we had, 12.24" and for the 2020-2021 season we had just a mere 5.38". There's more on the way too. This coming Tuesday could bring a couple more inches here. I would not be surprised to see 30" by the end of the season. Nevertheless, much of California remains inside of an ongoing drought.

Anyway, I was very glad to see there was going to be a break today so I could get outside and walk. Have I mentioned before that walking is the best therapy for a number of my aches and pains? Well it is and today I really needed it. Here are some pictures from the excursion.

Once again Docken joined me on the phone. Thank you Dockie.

Mourning dove (Zenaida macroura). The tree is a desert-willow (Chilopsis linearis).

The ever-present male Calypte anna hummingbird AKA, "Dusty." I saw no other hummingbirds today, which is quite odd. His shrub is Caesalpinia gilliesii.

The desert cottontail (Sylvilagus audubonii).

Shortly into what I call "my loop", the part of the walk that takes me north, then west and I loop back to the garden (it's short, just a little over 1/2 a mile) I ran into about a dozen Canada geese, 6 on each side of me. I was only about 8' away from the closet one and when it let out what I assumed was an alert about the large human with a camera, Docken thought it was a car horn it was so loud. We hear Canada geese all of the time but it's a little different when you're just a few feet away.

Up the hill, it was very quiet and it started to rain a little. I did some walking but didn't hang out long. This common raven flew past as I was in pursuit of a red-tailed hawk, once again up on a lamppost.

I was too late on the hawk.

I decided to drive down to the other side of the hill and just as I committed the car to going down the single lane I saw this across the street. I put the car in reverse and made my way to a place where I could stop and get out. I lost a bunch of time in so doing. I have not seen an American kestrel for several years now. The American kestrel, also called the sparrow hawk, is the smallest and most common falcon in North America but they seemed to have vanished from here. I believe the last time I photographed one was in 2015. Too bad the lighting today left a lot to be desired.

On the way back I spotted this red-tailed hawk half way up the hill. I pulled the emergency brake, hopped out of the car and took a couple of quick shots even though the lighting was awful.

And so ended my little adventure for the day.

I felt the coldness of my winter
I never thought it would ever go...

Today's walk report: 122813

From my front door and beyond.

It was another one of those walks where I felt had I left earlier I could have spent a lot more time walking. I felt GREAT! Initially my plan was to leave about 2:30 but I didn't get out until 3:13. I woke up this morning with an eyestrain headache and by 1:30 it was nagging at me so much I decided to lie down on the couch, close my eyes and listen to music. Same thing that happened on 121613 but for different reasons, as soon as the stereo lost wireless I was out. I don't know if this is a bandwidth issue or Pandora just likes to cut you off sometimes to see if you're still there. Whatever the case, once the music was gone me and the cat on top of me were both sound asleep. I figure there was 40 minutes of music and 30 of nap time. As my mom would always say, well, you must've needed it.

2/3 a cup of coffee, 1/2 a liter of water and a rare ibuprofen later, I grabbed iPod and camera and was out the door. The headache was still haunting me but it would disappear about 1 km into the walk.

I'm starting to see some activity already from some of the wildflower seed I laid down in October and why not? The seedlings probably think spring is already here, we had a high of 84º yesterday and it topped out at 76º today. Hardly what most people would call winter weather.

Outside my door...

Sweet Alyssum (Lobularia maritima)

and I believe this is Alyssum Purple Royal Carpet (Lobularia maritima). Those seeds went down late last year and I never saw anything.

Oxeye daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare), it seems odd to me that this is only manifesting in one small area so far but I know little about the secret life of plants.

Onto the campus...

Merely an exercise in manually focusing.

Cooper's hawk having delusions of grandeur?

I continue to find it challenging to get a nice close-up of an American Kestral. My camera data here says I was 10.9 meters away which actually would be the closest I've gotten BUT I don't want to be looking so directly up, I'd like a nicer pose, I want better lighting and I'd like to capture the bird on something more "natural" than a lamppost.

These are the two crows I've mentioned before. These birds have known me for 3 years now. Crows in the wild can easily live into their 20s. This was where I'd almost always find them at the top of the hill close to sunset but lately there have been birds of prey hanging out in this same location. From this spot I walk a circle on the top of the hill. It's about 800 meters.

When I came back to the crow's spot look who I found. I now believe this is a Prairie falcon (Falco mexicanus) but as always I welcome corrections, anyway, the crows were nowhere to be seen. Although I will also point out crows do not seem to be especially intimidated by hawks. See one challenge I probably diverted here.

Today's walk report: 122313, Christmas, 2013

A Christmas day walk report, special edition.

Okay, probably not special other than going out at a special time, doing a longer than average walk and having some Christmas related images. Plus if I call it special it makes up for the no walk report yesterday, not even a report of no report until right now. Yesterday was cooking and last minute cleaning for a small get together, day before Christmas, smörgåsbord feast. There was so much food I didn't even have time to prepare some of what I had planned to make. I forgot to take a picture of the table too. It looked something like this, only different.

Anyway, once my guests had left and I got the kitchen partially back in order, which is about the same state it remains in now, almost 24 hours later, I was more than ready to vegetate on the couch for the remainder of the evening. I watch concert videos, about 2/3rds of a movie and crawled into bed about midnight. The fire in my fireplace had burned itself out hours earlier, there were ginger snap and pfeffernüsse cookies on the coffee table but alas no one came down the chimney leaving  me gifts.

A lazy morning with my constant companion, Lucy T. Cat and out the door before lunch, or breakfast for that matter, off for a walk by 12:30. 75º and winds up to 25 mph it wasn't what most people (including me) would call Christmas weather but it was nice, I didn't mind.

I started with about 1/4 of my Mon-Thus, southbound neighborhood walk, part of the infamous, "Candy Cane Lane" and then did my "full" campus walk... roughly 11 km in all.

Creepy. I question the people who like to do creepy. Sorry to judge but geez, it's for young children.

Close up of Chucky the Elf.

I'm not sure I get the Santa Claus pirate ship connection either.

Model T Santa, this I understand completely. I mean, chitty-chitty bang, bang was a flying car, then there was Flubber...

The mail carrier had to smile at least once over the past several days.

These people obviously like Mickey Mouse and company.

The way over the top we love Santa Claus house.

Sort of a Santa meets Tarzan kind of thing.

One of my favorite decorations, sparing no expense to make something of quality that really stands out.

Onto the campus.

I met this charming British couple who we out birding and we stopped to chat. She told me about a San Fernando Valley Audubon group that does monthly outings and I'm going to look into that. I have a fondness for birds of prey for some reason and I'm not sure I'm interested in much else, other than the photography side which I find to be rather solitary but I would be interested in the locations they visit and it would probably be good for me to meet some people.

Nobody's ever very excited about getting their picture taken (I got that <sigh>) but I think they look quite lovely.

Lots of Canada geese in the pastures and flying about.

CORRECTED, almost positive now this is a Prairie falcon. Part of my problem in ID'ing birds is I think I get quite a number of wrong IDs online.

Horse, fly.

Red-tailed hawk and contrail.

American Kestrel in flight... avoiding me... as always.

Today's walk report: 120113

Bird games.

I've been trying to make better efforts at ID'ing, especially with birds because I've had some stuff I've needed to correct and there's probably more. I like to be accurate. A couple of things I was better at when I was a kid than I am now, one analog electronics and two, birds. Today however, I swear a couple of birds saw me coming.

Not this one, this is a mature female Selasphorus rufus. I thought it looked cute, like a Christmas tree ornament. I'd get a Christmas tree if I could have a hummingbird sit up top like this although I don't think Lucy T. Cat would react well.

But then there was this little guy. I was almost sure when I took this that it was the American Kestrel (Falco sparverius), sometimes colloquially known as the Sparrow Hawk, I keep trying to get a close shot of. I was absolutely blinded here by glare from the sun so things weren't real obvious. It is in the photo but it wasn't when it was "live." I was also about 45 meters away. It flew away as always once I got a little closer so I figured I'd check again on the way back. This bird is always in one of two places around sunset.

As I went further down the road I saw the campus had been hard at work on Christmas decorations.

Then I found this lovely pink glove. If only they made these in my size.

This particular road is just shy of 1 km, I go to the end as it takes you off campus, push the walk button at the traffic light there just to stop traffic after I'm already 50 meters away turning around and heading back in the direction I came. Why? Because I'm an impudent child at times. Anyway, as I approach the tree again I see the Kestrel is back...wait a minute... this doesn't look right.

Realize with my naked eye this is all a lot smaller than with a 300 mm lens. So I think OK, it's a Cooper's hawk, my bad. The Cooper's hawk is another one that won't let me get too close. But this time I got a show from the sky once I spooked it. Its still got its eye on me too, can you tell?

The hawk circles overhead a few times and eventually flies off...

and I'm thinking did I get this so wrong? Where's the Kestrel? Then I see a bird perched almost two lampposts away in front of me. Ah-ha! (Lampposts are separated by about 42 meters by the way. Yeah, I know all of this stupid shit by now.)

I'm still 21.7 meters away here. The bird takes flight as soon as I take my next step and goes back across the street. Would you believe 21.7 meters away? What I'd like is a good shot without stuff confusing the autofocus from about 12 meters.

That's about it. I went up the hill to sit, have a soda and watch the sunset. Thanks again for coming along!