Today's walk report: 041914, the walk report blog anniversary

That's right, one year ago today I moved this silly thing I started on Facebook which I referred to as my walk report over to this blog. I called it a walk report because that's what it appears to be. It's not just a walk though. Words to describe various walks: cleansing, purifying, meditative, introspective, ratiocinative, invigorating and motivating--often combinations of these effects. A lot of walks are also fun. A few have been a real pain. Usually, physically a pain. Typically with my feet.

For the last 10 weeks of so, I've usually had my companion, Docken joining me. With Docken all of what I mention above still happens but I have a lot more fun-- A LOT!

For the audience's sake (that would be you, for example) I've tried to write about some of the effects of my walks and make it at least somewhat interesting. I've also tried provide you, the reader, with some nice photographs.

This particular post is the 325th post from 041913 to today, 041914. I thought that number would have been higher but to be honest I hadn't really paid attention until just now. There were perhaps 6 days in the last year where I missed my walk. For sure there were 4 missed days because they just took place this past week. I just have to assume there were a couple more. I'm sure of a few half-ass, wimpy walks in the year's mix too. I'm going to assume something in the neighborhood of 1750 miles or 2,816 km walked. That's not even close to amazing, nor is it very interesting but I had a good time and feel like documenting it.

Starting yesterday, which was also my birthday...

Docken found this one... thanks Docken!

Kalanchoe delagoensis, Chandelier plant.

2

and that was it for the b-day shots.

On to today...

Grasshopper on a twig, this was a double-take, almost passing it by.

Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui)

Gulf Fritillary or Passion Butterfly (Agraulis vanillae)

2

3

Mimulus, aka, Monkey flower.

Danaus plexippus, Monarch butterfly.

2

Yarrow with verbena in the background.

Grass Skipper on yarrow.

The sunlight on this sage made it absolutely brilliant.

 This red-tailed hawk came down to us from a high tree, landed, listened, stared at us and proceeded to circle us as low as waist high! Amazing!

 

Milk thistle flowerhead.

Male Anna's hummingbird.

Freeway-style ice plant flower.

Some dude on a recumbent bike.

Almost home. This crow and probably a Cooper's hawk had some disagreement over the seating arraignments. After a 2nd crow joined in the hawk decided to depart.

Today's walk report: 081813

Double header.

In the A.M., iCal tells me I get the Dodgers vs. the Phillies game at 10:30 so I hustled to do some stuff all for naught, the Dodgers' calendar was wrong, no game on local TV.  So I said wtf, it's only 94º outside, why not go for a walk?

This is how I felt right at this point, only about .5 km into the walk. It's okay, it got better even though by the end of the 2 hours excursion it was 98º and pretty darn humid.

Buckeye (Junonia coenia). Between chasing butterflies and waiting for dragonflies to land I was siding with the dragonflies.

This was a four image focus stack. Flame Skimmer (Libellula saturata).
(Anyone bumping into my stuff here--please comment to correct IDs if you believe they aren't right.)

Hide and seek.

Peek a boo!

Red eared slider turtle kicking it in the lily pads.

Family: Skimmers - Libellulidae, no ID. The Flame Skimmer above was rather aggressive about chasing this guy away and for my best photo op I had the wrong lens.

Female common bluetail damselfly (Ischnura heterosticta)

again...

and again...

Water lilies are always closed by the time I usually get to the pond, late afternoon.

It was getting really hot. I had walked over to a vending machine for a beverage and came back to this guy.

Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) on lantana. I had both a male and a female on this lantana. The female is somewhat larger than the male, other than that I think you need to be really close to tell the difference.

 again (this might be the female)...

Same dragonfly as before almost an hour later. This one was pretty much hanging out for me.

Then there was a 2nd walk, out the door shortly after 6 P.M., a mere 87º.

A shell of his former self...

Green fruit beetles, doing what they do. My understanding is they only go for overly ripe fruit and are therefore not a agricultural threat. This is not a before and after, these are two sets of beetles.

Turkey vulture, moon.

Cloud parade.

These birds and I were all waiting for the sunset. This was about 20 minutes to go.

and finally...
(that's a lens flare off to the left, I'm still on planet earth.)

Today's walk report: 070713

Prologue (AKA, my AM excursion)...

First a correction on this. I had this flower as, a Nymphaea, water lily. It's actually a lotus flower, family Nelumbonaceae. Wikipedia seems to confirm this is a Sacred lotus, Nelumbo nucifera.

Yesterday I mentioned that I was going to check on the flower to see if it was open in the AM. If you don't know, don't care, haven't really thought about it, etc., I take my walks in the early evening. There are lots of water lilies in the main pond at the garden I visit. By the time I reach the garden they are closed for the night. This particular, lotus flower lives solo in a small memorial which was setup for one of the original curators of the botanical garden. It's called the Smallwood Fountain but I don't see how it's a fountain. I called it a pond/statue thing in a earlier post. Here's the dedication. The previous photos I posted of this plant are here and here.

Here are some of the photos I took this morning. I arrived at 10:15 AM. I took a car. There was minimal walking involved.

Hoverfly has an exclusive.

While I was at it...

(It's very far away
It takes about a half and a day to get there
If we travel by my uh, dragonfly )

The usual suspects in the pond.

Much later and onto the walk...

I didn't find much in the way of interesting photo ops. Most of what I took pictures of doesn't fit with what's above so just a couple of quickie shots and I'm out of here...

5 image focus stack, verbena and lantana. I like the two plants together but it was really just to see if I could get a decent focus stack with a long lens (70-300 mm). The two plants differ about 12 cm in height (4.72").

Finally... Male, Allen's hummingbird, peacefully perched.