Today's walk report: 120114, rainy days and Mondays

Monday, December 1, 2014.

It looks like rain, fact is, it's been raining on and off for a couple of nights and a day now and we've got a pretty decent storm coming in tomorrow--but it looks like the fringes are already here and it's already dark outside. So... no walk today and instead I bring you these images from the last couple of weeks. These photos were taken from 112114 to 113014 and are, for the most part, randomly ordered.

A hoverfly enjoys an early bloom, Eschscholzia californica (California poppy).

Yarrow, died back.

A black-chinned hummingbird on Aloe maculata.

An empty Alyogyne huegelii seedpod.

This black phoebe (Sayornis nigricans) was fluttering between this desert willow and the pond, taking a bath below.

Don't be fooled the spines are in there.

Female green lynx spider.

A graveyard for palo verde flowers.

Some cotyledons.

Vanessa cardui, near the front door.

Vanessa cardui on lantana.

Vanessa cardui on lantana.

This was a great macro find, well, it was for the photo aspect... not so much for setting up the shot.

This is what you see when you approach this wormy cactus. I was both surprised  and excited to see just how much beauty was up close.

The unfortunate side of getting down on the ground to take pictures of the tiny pink flowers was this... It was buried unseen in the gravel on your left. I put most of my weight onto this with my right palm. I then hollered for the lovely nurse Docken to assist. Both going in and pulling them out, these spines were shockingly painful.

Senna bicapsularis.

Senna bicapsularis.

More tiny spines.

Water flower.

Yellow rumped warbler in a desert willow.

Hairlike spines.

This was another delightful surprised once view with a Canon 60mm macro lens. One could barely tell there were flowers here with the naked eye and it was certainly a pleasant surprise to see how pretty they were. I believe the plant is some type of sedum.

Throw in a tiny black ant (Monomorium minimum) for measure. These worker black ants measure 1-2mm.

We ended up walking in the rain in Sunday, 113014 with cameras, primarily to get the above photo of the wormy cactus. The forecast for the day had called for light to no rain, we ended up with .66" which was .16" more than we had so far for the season.

Meanwhile, it's now noon, 120214 and it has been raining since about 6 am, already adding an additional .5" of rain and this is supposed to continue into tomorrow. We need it badly, unfortunately, we don't really have the resources to harvest the rainwater.

Today's walk report: 081814; Last weekend

Distracting myself from the pervasive moment, here's some stuff from the weekend of August 15-17.

The weather continues to aggravate with mid-upper 90º temps. It needs to go away.

Friday, 081514...

An A.M. walk, not that it helped much, quickly moving into the heat of the day. Docken and I stopped to look at a morning 1/2 moon and circling white doves.

Hoverfly on a salvia twig.

Gulf fritillary or passion butterfly (Agraulis vanillae)

A honey bee tussles in the stamen of a cactus flower.

Exploring the depths.

Cruising about.

Exit stage right.

One more time?

Rufous Hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus), the conversation was with me. I hope I didn't say the wrong thing...

but perhaps I did...

Kalnachoe daigremontina.

Saturday... I don't remember what happened to Saturday.

Sunday, 081714...

Cooper's Hawk, Accipiter cooperii, in an olive tree.

Asclepias fascicularis.

Agraulis vanillae.

Another Selasphorus rufus, seemingly entertained by my presence.

Onto another distraction.

Today's walk report: 112413

You know what I like about football?
It makes Sunday walks even more peaceful than they are without it.

Painted lady looking both bedraggled and plump. Maybe she's just looking for that spot to lay her eggs so she can say goodbye. Adult Vanessa cardui butterflies only live for two weeks.

I went to check on the green lynx spider (no, still no babies--I'm actually starting to worry for a spider) and while I had the close up attachment still on I saw this hoverfly on the Mexican bush sage just in front of me. I figure the spider is getting rather boring at this point so...

Aperture at f13 trying to compensate for the short DOF with the close-up attachment, not quite fast enough on the shutter though for this shot but I was sort of impressed to see how long the hoverfly's legs actually are.

The young falcon again, mentioned here, today on the other side of the street from top of the hill so I went over there and it got spooked on my approach...

I couldn't get focus quick enough in flight as it flew to where I was and where I usually see it. I will continue in my effort to get a good shot someday.

Yesterday I mentioned some geese getting past me before I got a shot off. Today I saw this small flock coming well in advance.

Today's walk report: 070713

Prologue (AKA, my AM excursion)...

First a correction on this. I had this flower as, a Nymphaea, water lily. It's actually a lotus flower, family Nelumbonaceae. Wikipedia seems to confirm this is a Sacred lotus, Nelumbo nucifera.

Yesterday I mentioned that I was going to check on the flower to see if it was open in the AM. If you don't know, don't care, haven't really thought about it, etc., I take my walks in the early evening. There are lots of water lilies in the main pond at the garden I visit. By the time I reach the garden they are closed for the night. This particular, lotus flower lives solo in a small memorial which was setup for one of the original curators of the botanical garden. It's called the Smallwood Fountain but I don't see how it's a fountain. I called it a pond/statue thing in a earlier post. Here's the dedication. The previous photos I posted of this plant are here and here.

Here are some of the photos I took this morning. I arrived at 10:15 AM. I took a car. There was minimal walking involved.

Hoverfly has an exclusive.

While I was at it...

(It's very far away
It takes about a half and a day to get there
If we travel by my uh, dragonfly )

The usual suspects in the pond.

Much later and onto the walk...

I didn't find much in the way of interesting photo ops. Most of what I took pictures of doesn't fit with what's above so just a couple of quickie shots and I'm out of here...

5 image focus stack, verbena and lantana. I like the two plants together but it was really just to see if I could get a decent focus stack with a long lens (70-300 mm). The two plants differ about 12 cm in height (4.72").

Finally... Male, Allen's hummingbird, peacefully perched.