Today's walk report: the last 10 days

There were a couple of "no-walks" and one solo walk since the last report. These images represent walks over the past 10 days.

5/30, solo walk...

Agapanthus, in the front yard.

Blue darner dragonfly.

Cactus flowers.

Red tailed hawk catches a grasshopper.

The same bird, up close.

Two crows, sun gazing.

  5/31... another solo walk.

Cooper's hawk on a wire.

Romneya coulteri, Matilija Poppy.

Salvia uliginosa, Bog sage.

Female Rufous hummingbird on Salvia darcyi.

Not much happened on the photo front until 6/6 and I'm back with Docken (yippee!)

Female Rufous hummingbird in a desert willow tree.

American bullfrrog.

Agave flowers, final stage.

This bumblebee's eyes were amazing but I couldn't get a very good shot off to really show them off. The consolation in this image is the tiny aphid traveling on the underside of the Salvia darcyi flower.

I really liked the way the background looked through the lens but not so much in the actual image. Nevertheless, this is a reminder for me to find out what this blue salvia is.

Another female Rufous on Salvia darcyi..

Another Cooper's hawk.

We found out what's going on with a pair of red-tailed hawks we're accustomed to seeing. They've been hanging out around "home base" a lot. It's nesting season...

I'm pretty sure this is mom.

and her nest is here. We watched her fly a rather weighty looking tree branch into this spot. You can just make her out in the picture.

 Meanwhile, we spooked this coyote back down the hillside. We spotted it chasing a young jack rabbit up the hill toward us but fortunately it wasn't too interested after it became aware of our presence.

onto 6/7....

A side view of the bullfrog. This is my 2nd year with this frog. American bullfrog's live an estimated 8-10 years in the wild

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A young rufous hummingbird on silver sage.

While a Lesser Goldfinch munches away on the silver sage seed pods.

and momma red-tailed continues with her nest building efforts. Here she's pulling a small branch from a conifer tree...

...and takes it to her nest.

Dad's nearby and seems rather disinterested.

finally, today, 060814...

Salvia darcyi and Salvia Salvia uliginosa.

It's very unfortunate but I've only seen one other monarch this spring before this one today.

This is a young carpenter bee. I watched carpenter bees and bumble bees today both vying for the same flowers out of 1,000s of Salvia darcyi blooms.

Honey bee on Salvia uliginosa.

A little culture on the way out? All they needed to do was open with John Philip Sousa's, March, "The Thunderer" and we were out of there.

My companion, Docken... she makes everything wonderful.

Today's walk report: 111713

Wake the kids, violent animal behavior coming up.

But first...

I'm only posting a shot of this sage again because I posted the other day and didn't have the name. I knew the Bezerkeley nickname but still wasn't finding it on Google. Also it balances out the squirrel shots coming up.

 Salvia Microphylla 'Bezerkeley'

 This is the Mexican bush sage I mentioned yesterday. I've been trying to get a shot of the only hummingbird I've seen in the garden last few days feeding on this sage to no avail. Why? Because it would be a nice shot,  I cleared some "Bog sage," Salvia uliginosa from in front of it and, most importantly, there's a bench right in front. It's nice sometimes just to sit and take pictures. Anyway, it didn't happen. The hummingbird simply wouldn't come forward.

That would be this guy, Selasphorus rufus. By the way, I've tried cloning this sage before and I'm going to try again come spring. It does so much better than any other Mexican bush sage I've ever seen. This bird DOES like it, just not when I'm close enough for a decent photo.

Onto the kill. This surprised me because you don't typically see hawks ground level especially in streets or parking lots. I was also pretty far away when I 1st spotted the bird and it wasn't until I looked through the lens that I saw what was going on.

I was down a small dirt incline on the sidewalk below this parking area so I thought I'd at least try to step up into the lot. Mr. hawk was too pleased with my approach. By the way, I'm assuming this is the mister. I've posted this same hawk before. It's the largest of the 3 hawks I know of on the campus. I'm pretty sure they are family.

He reacts to my movement and I'm amazed that he can carry the squirrel in flight. That's also a pretty good sized squirrel.

Across the parking lot and the access road below to this spot is about 45 meters away. Yes, I measured it. I did that on Google Earth moments ago.

He is still rather perturbed by this guy with a camera and takes flight to the speed limit sign several feet away.

If you look carefully you'll see a little tuft of squirrel fur on his beak.

I'm starting to feel a little guilty now about interrupting dinner but want to take a few quick seconds and get a close up of the kill.

Aside from the blood he looks almost happy. No one's going to question my getting the gender right here.

The hawk moved to a tree just above the squirrel and watched me as I proceeded up the hill.

This young falcon is also becoming a regular sunset viewer up top of the hill. One of these days I'll get a good picture of it.

Looking Southwest, sunset and Venus.

Interesting condensation trail. Or for the conspiracy theory whack-jobs, a chemtrail. Yes, the government is trying to poison us all... please hurry and leave the country, OK?

According to camera data this was 291 meters away. With the naked eye I was thinking wtf is that?!?

Apparently this kid on the cross country course saw it coming down too.

Today's walk report: 082413

Eric and the arachnid.

There was a young couple acting sort of lovey-dovey in the garden today and it kind of cramped my style. Not much happening on the photo front either except for this spider find. I unfortunately lost it after I moved the bog sage (Salvia uliginosa) spire around a little too much.

My guess on this would be a green lynx spider (Peucetia viridans) but I'm open to alternate suggestions. It seems to have most of the qualifications except... it's not very green, at least not as green as those I'm seeing online. 'Could be another type of lynx spider though. Also, it appears as though it might have been carrying some eggs, at least in the 1st shot. I dunno... you decide, I'm tired.

EF-S60mm f/2.8 Macro on all of these.

A little chromatic aberration, yeah I see it.

This one is a 6 image focus stack. The image was vertical. It was too goofy to look at like that.

Lastly, a red-eared slider turtle I thought was going to continue on right up my pants leg. While very accustomed to people (maybe too much so), they don't usually do that.