Today's walk report: Call me mellow yellow

 Mellow yellow, that's right you heard right the theme for tonight is yellow. As I wandered around the local botanical garden today I quickly realized, a lot of stuff was suddenly blooming and a great deal of it was predominantly yellow. 

While I was bopping around my local garden Docken was bopping around the one near her and so we bopped together over the phone. Thank you Dockie! 

Here are the images I chose out of 492 taken.

Encelia californica.

 Last week I mentioned male Calypte anna hummingbird, Dusty, perhaps knowing when I arrived in the garden. Today, I kid you not, he wasn't on his Caesalpinia gilliesii bush so I called him and sure enough he came flying in and perched himself right down.

 These are all various types of Acacia bushes/trees. I'm not feeling especially inclined to label them after spending about 3.5 hours editing photos. If you feel tremendously curious you can hover over images or open them on their own window and probably see the name I gave them. Always remember you may click to enlarge. Personally, I go look at the images on a 43" TV right after I post.

 Grevillea laevis.

Another Acacia.

Another male Calypte anna hummingbird (not Dusty) on a Senna bicapsularis shrub.

Leucadendron.

There's always a mockingbird, this one on the Senna bicapsularis shrub. It looks like she might be with egg(s). Mockingbirds usually nest twice a year sometimes 3 or 4 times when conditions are favorable.

 Eremophila glabra.

Dusty and I got together three times for some pictures.

Allocasuarina torulosa, AKA, the forest oak.

Everything you've ever heard about this song is probably true. (Quite rightly)

Today's walk report: 020523

 Just a little early morning rain and the skies were beautiful. A nice cool walk with Docken on the phone (thanks Dockie).

Canada geese flying overhead on my way to the garden. You can always hear them coming.

 Once again, there was male Calypte anna hummingbird, "Dusty" in his new location a Caesalpinia gilliesii shrub. Is he hanging out waiting for me to show up? Does he see me walking in?

More geese heading for the fields on the west side of the campus.

And a little more time with Dusty because he's such a pretty bird.

Directly across the walkway, Hey Dusty! A female Calypte anna. In courtship display males climb up to 130 feet into the air and then swoop down on females, emitting a loud "chirp" from their tail-feathers. I’ve been hearing quite a bit of this both in my front and back yards lately. There was none of this from Dusty today.

The ancient car worshipers were back today. The humans were mostly crowding the cars and visitor’s cars were also blocking cars on display. To be honest, I often have trouble distinguishing between the two. 

This is apparently a 1963 C-spec Daimler SP250.

Corvette Stingray, work in progress?

1991 Nissan 240SX. I guess eventually all cars become classic cars? If they last long enough. 

This is a Volkswagen Golf Mk7.  'Pretty sure.

The guy with the Rolls-Royce Dawn Black Badge wasn't too interested and was heading out.

I don't entirely know what possessed me to walk the steps but here I am, half way up and checking out the famous Elephant Mountain.

I put a bunch of dry cat food down for this common raven and I think it may have been checking it out as I was leaving. It certainly paid attention to what I was doing but there were two different human couples who came in from the opposite direction and I think the bird decided to wait for the coast to be clear.

A few moments latter it hooked up with its mate.

There were four turkey vultures swirling around as I headed back down the hill.

Rain's over, the wind is coming...

Today's walk report: 020423

 This blog post is dedicated to someone I never met, however, it's someone who I know often saw pictures from this blog and I'm told she enjoyed many of them. This post is also dedicated to her son, my friend, Trey, who lost her, his mother, two nights ago. I can only hope I helped bring some beauty her way and for Trey that those moments added to fond memories of time spent with his mom. 

"There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief."
~Aeschylus 

A familiar cast of characters. The male Calype anna hummingbird is, of course, Dusty. The black birds are European starlings. The sheep have moved farther down the hill. The air battle, I missed most of because they were behind a tree, was a bit different. I didn't realize until I got home that it was a common raven chasing off a turkey vulture. Docken joined me via phone for the walk. Thank you Dockie. She also gave me the time at the sundial. It was 9:46.

Here are the pictures.

 

Pulling the car into the driveway on the return home, I noticed one Osteospermum flower had opened. There are 15 Osteospermum plants I started under lights in a closet that I grew from seed. It probably cost me a lot more than going to a nursery and buying plants but there's something special about growing plants from seed. It's magical.

The rising spirit of the new 

I can look through the windows of their minds 

Why should we care about the means 

Our last goal is to reach the end