Today's walk report: 081114; Last weekend

Once again a tad tardy on a weekend report. Oh well.

It's been hot and trying to push walks out to early evening means less light and fewer pictures. I'm really looking forward to fall.

080814, Friday...

We were late to the garden and the lighting was pretty dismal. I commented once out load about neglecting to bring a flash and grumbled to myself a few more times.

Bee on narrow-leaved milkweed, Asclepias fascicularis.

This young Selasphorus rufus was the only hummingbird photo op I saw. A lot of the taller sages are starting to fall to the summer heat, making it more difficult to capture hummingbirds as they dart about inside.

This isn't a very good picture but it was the 1st time I've seen a crayfish (aka, crawfish, crawdads, freshwater lobsters, or mudbugs) in the water. I knew they were there but since they are usually much deeper than this I've only seen them before in the mouth of an egret. I used the on board flash for this shot and also needed to crank the shadows way up in Photoshop.

Crayfish amongst mosquito fish.

At this point I decided to simply sit and wait for my girl to finish her photos. On the bench I noticed this ant rather frantically trying to navigate this object which looked especially sizable. I screwed on my Canon 500D close up lens to my zoom at 300mm for a closer look. 'Turns out to be a bee's wing.

080914, Saturday...

Young Selasphorus rufus in a Sequoia tree.

Selasphorus rufus in Silver Sage.

Female Selasphorus rufus. no plant ID.

Selasphorus rufus in red-stemmed dogwood.

Kevin says, "hey!"

Hey!

There's a "supermoon" coming tomorrow. This looked pretty super to us already.

081014, Sunday, yesterday...

We didn't walk much, in fact we pretty much drove all but a mere 1 km or 0.62 miles.  It was hot and getting late but we wanted to take pictures. It was nice to get out.

I was SURROUNDED by Selasphorus rufus for several minutes. For the most part it was too exciting watching to be fighting to track zooming, swooping and darting hummingbirds.

Selasphorus rufus.

2

 Something I said?

3

4

Selasphorus rufus inside summer's collapsing Salvia darcyi.

Selasphorus rufus preening.

Ready for the party.

Today's walk report: 062313

Back to normal... whatever that is.

For the 1st time in a week I was back to my routine journey, 8.79 km, same old, same old. Sunday walks are always nice, quiet, peaceful and because of that I typically take extra time to stop, reflect and often take more photos than on other days. This all occurring once I get to the garden which is at the 1.85 km mark.

Before I got there...

Camouflaged.

Oh look, already in the garden. How 'bout that. I was listening to a MP3 version of this show, I ripped it from the DVD I bought and it's so entertaining that time simply slips by.

I thought the spines looked amazing in the sunlight but I think you had to be there. The debris is mostly withered yellow flowers from the palo verde trees above. All their flowers are gone now. I always look forward to when the palo verde are in full bloom. There's a shot from May 3rd, here.

My egret friend was hanging out again today. The pond is full of crawdads (also called crayfish or crawfish) and lots of small mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis), I think the egret enjoys both of these.

 Alyogyne huegelii, White Swan.

Eucalyptus iforgetwhatthefuckitis.

Looks like the ants and I get a second round of strawflowers.

Molecular buckwheat.

Sunset, almost home.