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: 031614

Yesterday and today.

A couple of beautiful days and matinée walks with my girl, Docken.

Yesterday we headed out in the late A.M. because we had a party to attend in the evening. If you knew me you'd know that's an unusual event, me+party. In fact I probably haven't been to an adult party in 15+ years. The company made all the difference and the party folks were splendid too.

031514: A short walk to the botanical garden and around, about 6.5 km. Not much on the photo front. It was windy, time stood still...

Palo Verde flowers.

Unknown yucca in a parking lot.

One of the "regular" red-tailed hawks. I hadn't seen him in quite awhile now and it was a 1st sighting for a walk with Docken.

031614: Back to Corbin Canyon.

Docken and I walked to Corbin Canyon on 021314 and I posted that walk here. It was a lot greener today after finally getting about 4" of rain in February.

The bush this bee was on was completely a buzz with 100s more bees.

Honestly, we could not figure out the rest of this message so I left it with "LA."

It may sound frivolous but butterflies and rainbows have been an important theme in my life as of late.

Bothwell Ranch the the last commercial orange grove in the San Fernando Valley.

You wouldn't believe the racket this little woodpecker was making on this telephone pole, so I won't bother trying to explain.

That's all! We hit 90º f today and it's still officially winter, although climatically we in SoCal had given up on the season some time ago. Nevertheless, beautiful walks in lovely company. Thanks for coming along!

Today's walk report: 020914

Tandem hawks.

Marveled at a pair of red-tailed hawks (red-tailed hawks mate for life) and a modest conflict with a crow. The crow was slightly out of frame.

Rufous hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus.)

DUCK!!!

1st California poppy of the year.

Today's walk report: 012614

Take my word for it...

'Cause I didn't get pictures. It was exciting. Just as I was crossing the street to enter the campus I see a red-tailed hawk going after two crows and I mean REALLY going after them. I started to point the camera upwards while only 2/3 across but I also noticed the "walk sign" counting down and traffic waiting for a green so I thought better. Actually, there was two rounds of attacks and if it wasn't so darn exciting to watch I might have been able to get a shot or two off but all I ended up with during the aggression was one of the crows.

I'll make an assumption that the red-tailed were protecting a nest. That's the other thing. I didn't realize until the battling red-tailed hawk's "return to base" that a mate was also in that tree.

 As soon as I walked across the street on campus toward the birds the lower one took off. Once I got square with the front of the tree the upper bird, the aggressor in warding off the crows, followed.

I walked around a bit trying to see where they went and if indeed there was a nest in the area but I lost them.

Looping back to my regular course I spotted my 1st woodpecker with camera in hand. As soon as I got close enough to get a modestly decent photo the little pecker took off. This was the best I could tweak out of Photoshop so I could get an idea of what the bird looked like. This is about 45 meters from that tree. I always take the 1st shot I can get and then start moving in. At least that way I can get an idea of what to look for the next time.

As you can see it was another gray dismal day for the most part. Except the difference today was it actually rained a little. It didn't even get the ground wet but perhaps it's a precursor of more to come this week. Friday reads, 60% chance of rain at the moment. However we've seen that sort of prediction fizzle several times already this winter.

Here's male Anna's hummingbird #1 once again but what I wanted to show was we're seeing some foilage on the Caesalpinia gilliesii bush now. While the flowers on that bush are really wild bees are much more attracted to them than hummingbirds are, in fact I don't believe I have any photos of hummingbirds going for the Caesalpinia flowers.

Here's what those flowers look like. This photo was taken last April. In fact it may have been taken for the 1st walk report on this blog, 041913.

There's several plants showing blooms now that are attractive to the hummingbirds. Scarlet bugler (Penstemon centranthifolius) and Grevillea olivacea are both coming in nicely. So is this Chandelier plant (Kalanchoe delagoensis.)

New signs in the garden... Austrailian Natives (north end) and California Natives as you enter from the south side. I'm a California native myself.

Despite it being mostly gray we got a nice sunset. I was far away from my usual sunset vantage points by this time having cut the walk a little short (7.39 km) wanting to get home. This is a 4 image stitch from the front of my house.