Today's walk report: 082821

 Dusty, not Dusty?

While I'm glad and grateful I got out to visit the local botanical garden, take some pictures and get some walking in, for the most part... it was a struggle. I'll blame it on the vacuuming yesterday. When I decide to vacuum the house there is always more vacuuming to be done than my back can tolerate. Heck, there's more vacuuming to be done than is humanly possible, it should be an Olympic event. I think the killer was in the third quarter, the vacuum lift onto the ottoman to clean cat hair. Yeah, that was it. Anyway, I got out and I took a few pictures. I climbed stairs too because I'm badass.

There wasn't much hummingbird cooperation in the garden. There were two male Calypte anna hummingbirds. I'm about 92% sure this first bird is Dusty and I think I could clear up any uncertainty if I did some comparison scoping with previous photographs but I'm not up to the task. Maybe later.

 

This male Calypte anna is definitely not Dusty. I had a really hard time on photographic congeniality with this bird. This is the best I could do. For the most part the sunlight was directly in my face once again, so that and the fact that presumed Dusty was chasing the bejeebies out of this bird along with a single female Selasphorus rufus hummingbird, kept me from having decent moments to get a shot off.

After about 20 minutes of dicking around (intransitive, chiefly US, informal + somewhat vulgar : to spend time idly or aimlessly : to waste time : fool around, mess around) with these birds and being blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce, I decided to hit the stairs. The stairs, only rivaled by the Angkor Wat's temple stairs in Cambodia. 

Right as I was thinking about a prairie falcon which flew directly in front of my face and landed next to me on yesterday's neighborhood walk (messing with the phone for a photo seemed unnecessary), a red-tailed hawk flew in front of my face. You know, pretty darn close. Closest point, I'd say about 10 yards in front of me. When a bird of prey, that large is that close you take notice. I fumbled with the camera, then I followed the bird. More stairs.

It was well camouflaged. I tried to walk around to where the light was to my advantage but I didn't get too far before the hawk took off.

Still apprehensive about students showing up on campus, it was a little after 8:00 AM, I decided to head home. As it turns out, school starts on Monday and most of the classes I looked at on their schedule were either "Internet" or "Live on-line". However signs and banners around the campus seem to indicate they expect the presence of people. I suspect any "lab classes" are going to require attendance.

For me personally? I wouldn't put a lot of faith in those notices. 

In closing... how about some more butterfly pictures from the backyard?

Giant swallowtail butterfly (Papilio cresphontes) on Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia rotundifolia). It's a non-stop parade of butterflies on these flowers.

Today's no walk report: 072420

A couple of posts back I complained about not seeing a normal frequency of swallowtail butterflies this year. Since then I seem to be getting daily visits but they generally disappear by the time I get outside with my camera. Of course they do. The attraction in the backyard is the Plumbago auriculata plants and unfortunately their flowers are rapidly dying back. Both the Papilio rutulus, aka, the western tiger swallowtail and the Papilio cresphontes or giant swallowtail, have a rather frenzied interest in the plumbago. This often makes picture taking somewhat challenging.

Plumbago flowers are loaded with very sticky trichomes so that may have something to do with the the butterflies agitated behavior. I got curious about the plant’s adaptation for this stickiness thinking, like many plants with sticky trichomes, that it must be a defense against insects and found some suggestions that plumbago may be protocarnivorous. However, most research seems to conclude that the actual purpose of the glandular trichomes is not clearly understood. One other note, larger insects like grasshoppers and katydids seem to love hanging out in plumbago.

This was the only decent shot I got this afternoon of a Papilio rutulus butterfly, thanks to the frenzy.

There’s one more reason for this post. It’s the first blog post I’ve done entirely on a mobile device (iPad). I found the process a bit cumbersome compared to working from a desktop computer but it wasn’t awful. 

Addendum 

I don’t typically do this but wtf. It’s August 2nd and I had afterthoughts about a couple of items. One was to add another shot of the Papilio rutulus butterfly just to show it with wings open. So here’s that...

I also thought I should better illustrate the Plumbago auriculata plant and highlight the glandular trichomes. Note the calyxes in the lower center of the image. These are extremely sticky resin-like exudates, the trichomes, that trap mostly small winged insects. 

Today's walk report: 042014, a day late.

Another thing...

After doing this daily, most days, for a year, I'll admit--as simple as it might be, it's not always easy to get to. We had a wonderful walk yesterday, Easter Sunday, but when it came down to getting some pics in etc., I really didn't feel like it.

Anyway, here you go...

Painted lady, Vanessa Cardui on Eschscholzia californica.

Some sort of Rice flower, I think.

Giant swallowtail butterfly (Papilio cresphontes), not in very good shape.

Closer. The flowers are palo verde.

We stopped to pet this guy. He pushed right up to the fence to encourage us. I seriously wanted to take him home.

Baaa... baaaaa.... bye.

Today's walk report: 092513

Chasing butterflies.

On several occasions this summer I spotted what I believe was the same Western Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio rutulus), typically from my office window or while attending to something outside around the house. I'd grab my camera and would follow the thing around, front to backyard, one side yard to the other but I only saw it land once and it was ridiculously far away for a good picture. When I was a kid we would see Tiger Swallowtails all the time. I'm a little shocked and dismayed over how few butterflies I see here now.

Today I found this about 1/2 a km in on my walk. This is a Giant Swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes) and yes, quite obviously, it's dead.

Here's the underside...

I don't usually bring a DSLR with me on Mon-Thurs, neighborhood walks but today I did. Mostly because I was thinking I might catch a nice sunset and I did but I decided not to detour to a good photo op spot for pics. It would have added over 3 km and a hill I didn't feel like tackling.

More square pictures...

I cannot BELIEVE these chairs were FREE. I would like to see who was using each of these, just curious.

Intersections and three birds.