Today's walk report: 101514, last weekend

Busy with other "stuff," last weekend's walks and picture taking took a back seat but here's what I've got...

Saturday, 101114.

Blue-eyed Darner (Aeshna multicolor, syn. Rhionaeschna multicolor).

A wild rose.

Vanessa cardui aka, Painted Lady, or the Cosmopolitan.

Vanessa cardui on lantana.

Another Blue-eyed Darner.

Sunday, 101214.

A small tribute to the southwestern fence lizard. Things are finally cooling down in SoCal and that'll mean goodbye to the lizards for awhile.

Some species of Banksia, plant family Proteaceae.

Common Buckeye butterfly, Junonia coenia. With its wings closed at 1.5 meters amongst the wood chips and dirt the butterfly seemed to disappear every time I pulled the camera away. This butterfly REALLY blends in well.

The red-eared slider turtles, like the lizards, will disappear soon too. Red-eared sliders brumate over the winter at the bottom of ponds or shallow lakes; they become inactive, generally, in October, when temperatures fall below 10 °C (50 °F).

So ends our tail, er, tale this week... Stay tuned for more and thanks for coming along on our walk.

Today's walk report: 012514

From gloom to bloom.

Yesterday I mentioned the weather was gray and dismal and not the good kind of gray and dismal which brings rain, just dreary. Today was much different. I knew before I left the house that a detour to a vantage point for the sunset would be in order and I equipped myself accordingly (I brought a 2nd lens.)

Before getting to that...

Okay, it's a boring western fence lizard and not even a very good photo but here's the deal... It's January 25th! It's winter or it's supposed to be. These critters should be hibernating. I saw two.

Maybe a yellow rumped warbler, close enough anyway. It kept hopping around inside this bush and was a little aggravating to get a picture of.

Same bird, different angle. This is why the ID thing is hard.

The other day I took a photo of male Anna's hummingbird #1 from the back and called it a butt shot. Here's #1 again and a real butt shot.

Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui).

One of my donkey friends. The donkeys seem to get a much better deal than the horses do. At least they get to roam some of the time.

Finally, sunset. I did a shortcut to the cross country course because I thought I was getting late. It turned out I had plenty of time. Anyway because of that I'll guesstimate the walk at 8 km. It was a really pleasant walk with a killer album list-- U.K. (Danger Money), Steely Dan (Katy Lied), Led Zeppelin (I) and Brand X (Masques.) Thanks for coming along.

Today's walk report: 101813

Sing out hare, hare, dance the hoochie coo.

What a difference a day makes. The pain that made me decide not to walk yesterday and put in an evening for recovery... 96.7% gone today. 8.79 km of happy walking took place.

Some of the same old on the walk in regard to photo ops. I felt like walking though so I didn't spend much time trying to find pictures.

I've mentioned before, there is often a 1st picture that I'll take just in case there's nothing else ahead. I wouldn't have minded taking a nice picture of this Buick Skylark but I didn't have the right lens. So I backed up at 70mm. The car is in nice shape but I don't have an understanding for why anybody would want to drive something like this these days. Maybe it looks a little nicer with the top down? I'm guessing this is a 1954. The thing's older than I am.

Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui), looking a bit faded from the summer. By the way, it hit 92º here today. It's October 18th in case that slipped past you or you showed up late. Indian summer they like to call it. I call it the pits.

Selasphorus rufus.

I don't know what this moth is. It never settled down for a moment. It was constantly moving from flower to flower rapidly fluttering its wings. I'm surprised I got a picture at all.

Yep. Same green lynx spider I've posted a few times now but if you look back you will see that its colors have constantly been changing.  From the side it looks completely brown now.

Okay, here it is. The changing colors of autumn in the San Fernando Valley of Southern California. This is it!

Today's walk report: 072613

It wasn't really a walk, walk...

but I walked quite a lot. Another trip to Sperling nursery in Calabasas, CA. I picked up a few plants I can kill later and I took some pictures of...

FLOWERS!!!
(etc.)

Scaevola, fan flower.

Rudbeckia

Echinacea 'Magnus'

Rudbeckia

Plumeria

Gaillardia - probably 'Goblin' or Arizona Sun'

Echinacea

Plumeria

The reason it became a walk and it was REALLY humid and pretty darn hot was not so much the size of the nursery but I had lost my company. I thought she was headed up for the Jacaranda but apparently she said "gift shop." They don't sound the same to me at all. I walked in circles up and down the hillside for quite a while before I got a clue.