Once upon a Monarch Butterfly

 Since June 28th I’ve been working on and off editing Folder 17 for a project I affectionately call, Once Upon a Walk Report (OUaWR). The details can be found in the first edition posted here on January 24, 2021. Folder 17 started out with 8,937 images and 11 videos from October 31, 2017 until October 12, 2018. That folder now contains 2,647 images and 11 videos, which is a percentage decrease of 70.38%. This process, besides being tedious, often carries with it a mixed bag of emotions both good and bad. 2018 was, in late June, especially dark and remorseful for both Docken and I. Docken lost her dear sweet, wonderful prince of a cat, Greg and I almost lost… me. That, of course, made things even more difficult for Doc. Greg had cancer. I had a saddle pulmonary embolism. Around 1 in 4 people who develop any form of pulmonary embolism die instantly. Another 10-30% die within a month of diagnosis. I had about a dozen doctors in the ICU and ER greet me with this line, almost as if they had all rehearsed it together beforehand, you are really lucky. I was especially lucky to have Docken get my butt to the hospital. Once again, thank you Docken.

I put aside about 300 images for this and future posts. This first post is about an event that took place from December 21, 2017 until January 15, 2018. On that December morning Docken and I discovered two monarch caterpillars on a milkweed plant near the front door of the house. I knew already that early morning temperatures were about to drop into the 30°s and that if these caterpillars were to survive there would have to be an intervention. Docken prepared one of her hurricane candle globes while I made preparations to bring the caterpillars inside. Despite the challenges of it being off-season for the caterpillars, we hoped they could at least fulfill their destiny and become butterflies. One of them only made it to the pre-puba stage. Shortly after it hung itself upside down to create a chrysalis it stopped developing. This is the story of the second caterpillar’s survival. In retrospect, it’s a metaphor of what was to become in 2018.

These images are presented in the order they were taken. The hurricane candle globe was at first covered with vented aluminum foil while things got organized. That was quickly replaced with a vented paper plate with a faux jade Buddha paperweight placed on top. It was lifted off the globe from time to time until the caterpillars made their way topside.

The paper plate moved to the backyard into a pre-planned location in a ficus tree.

Yesterday's endings will tomorrow life give you...

Weekend walk report: Attack of the Northern Flicker

 Walks and picture taking along the way for Saturday, July 8th and Sunday, July 9th, 2023.

Saturday, July 8th

This was one of those weekends, both days, where I wasn't feeling too keen on going out for a walk and suddenly I found myself getting ready and before I knew it I was out the door. Docken came along on the phone both days. Oddly enough both inbound calls from her found me in the garden in almost exactly the same spot. Thank you, Dockie. Here are some pictures. 

 Here's an example of expectations filtering out what's right in front of your eyes. Well, my eyes. This is a scrub jay but it's occupying a tree that I have come to expect a certain mockingbird almost every weekend for quite some time. I was wondering how come my "mockingbird" wasn't singing. Later I was little upset over this bird taking over his territory.

 Male Calypte anna hummingbird, Dusty, high in the Caesalpinia cacalaco tree.

This is a Bewick's wren (Thryomanes bewickii).

I had a difficult time pursuing this male monarch butterfly. For the most part picture taking opportunities left a lot to be desired (both days).

However, I did manage to put a couple of laps in on the lower campus loop and it was brisk.

Canada geese. They don't want to go home anymore.

Second trip back to the garden, it was just the freeloading scrub jay hanging out. Squatter!

 Sunday, July 9th

It was gray and gloomy this morning. I take no responsibility for that.

This was out of place enough for me to take a picture of it. The nearest bathroom is approximately 75 yards away.

Male Calypte anna, Dusty, again on one of his favorite perches. This particular branch (go ahead, look at previous posts) in a rather large and what I now believe to be, quite dead, California Bay tree. That's too bad, where is that guy gonna go now for leaves to season his soup?

Once again I did the dreaded stairs. I couldn't find anything topside I cared to take pictures of so I proceeded to walk down the hill and back to the parking lot where my car was parked. First, I saw the ravens but they were a tad too distant to pursue. Then I saw what I thought was a mockingbird going after the largest of the ravens (for a short while there were 3). It wasn't until I got home that I realized it wasn't a mockingbird but rather a northern flicker. The raven didn't seem too upset but after about 30 yards of being chased off he decided to fly to the other end of the parking lot. I tried to drive up next to him and his pal (considerably smaller and I thought an offspring as opposed to his mate) and tossed them some kitty kibble. They had some other grub they were more interested in. The pictures suck but at least you get the idea.

The male that was attacked moved out of frame. I was in my car at this point.

Here's something from early on, as I was walking to the garden. It made me laugh. I frequently wear out the toes in my shoes but this morning I noticed this on my left foot. Not only was there a hole in the shoe but it was also lining up with a hole in my sock. I recently bought a little kit on Amazon for darning socks. A couple of YouTube tutorials and I'm good to go.

 
Meanwhile. I'll leave you with this...

Today's walk report: Walking

 I told myself yesterday that Sunday's walk (that's today) needed to focus on getting a walk in for the purpose of overall physical and emotional well-being. You know, get the circulation going, release endorphins and increase serotonin production, influence the old hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, etc. In other words, get out and get some exercise. I feel I did okay with that. I even pushed myself a little and trekked the stairs. The stairs, only paralleled and often compared to the Florli Stairs, near Lysefjord, Norway.

I took a few pictures along the way.

I decided to take a few quick laps around the garden without the intention of looking too hard for things to take pictures of. As soon as I walked into male Calypte anna hummingbird, Dusty's main hang I saw him dash over to this spot and perch himself. That has been happening this way for several weeks now. Does he see me and decide that's where he wants to greet my entrance into his domain, or is it merely a coincidence? I used to ponder a similar question in the winter when, as soon as I came upon the main walkway going through the center of the garden, I would see him suddenly perch himself typically on the same branch of a Caesalpinia gilliesii shrub. Here's an example of that behavior.  

The glare from the sun was so direct and so brightly in my face that these two shots were taken blindly.

Onto my westbound "loop". 

Yes, even on a holiday weekend the ancient car worshipers were out in force.

This is, I believe, a '58 Chevrolet Corvette. I'm pretty sure the original tires on these models were always whitewalls. 

 These two De Tomaso, Panteras were parked next to each other. The yellow one is a 1971. I don't usually get very close to the ancient car worshipers and their cars but this was close to the sidewalk and no one was nearby. I don't think I'd be too inclined to drive a car with that sort of engine placement, exposed and right behind me.

Blue and white agapanthus. I sat down in front of these after climbing the stairs. This has been somewhat of a curiosity for me of late. Some years ago my sister gave me some agapanthus rhizomes, the flowers of which were all white. In November of 2020 I tried planting a bunch of seeds when I noticed them in the dying back flower heads, semi-translucent in the sunshine. In November of 2022 I began transplanting many of these from one gallon containers on my patio out to the front of the house. I was curious what color the flowers would be. I assumed that white was a recessive gene merely based on how many blue agapanthus I see as opposed to white. I looked it up... sure enough, white was a recessive gene. My first bloom just a few weeks ago was coming up blue, so was the second one but the third and fourth flower stalks are popping up white. That's all I've got so far, 50-50. I dunno... I thought that was interesting. 

 Here's what my agapanthus seedlings looked like when they first began sprouting in November of 2020. These are tiny but they look like agapanthus plants already. These started out under a grow light in a closet.

Here are some of the white flowers taken in 2013.

Here are the mother plants taken with my phone on June 14th.

Back to the walk...

This is the end of time.

A couple of feet away, I suspect foul play.

Thanks for stopping by.

 I don't think I had ever heard this song in it's entirety before. I also just read the lyrics. Imagine my surprise... I thought it was about a car.

Today's walk report: monarchs in the making, prequel version

 My post, Sunday June 4th was titled, Weekend walk report: monarchs in the making. That post was all about monarch caterpillars. Before the caterpillars come the eggs and before the eggs... I believe this is only the second time I've spied a monarch couple mating.

I always find it a bit rough capturing in flight butterfly images. This was marginally acceptable, they're a little slower when coupled like this. The male is in the lead.

Of course, they just had to maintain their position once they landed in the pistachio tree, with me shooting into the sun. I tried to move around the best I could but right in front of me it's thick with sages, verbena and a lot of wild roses.

Previous experience taught me that they could stay like this for quite some time and I wanted to get some walking in so I left the two little lovers alone.

Meanwhile male Calypte anna hummingbird, Dusty, had finally settled down for a moment in one of his regular perches. He had been quite busy chasing at least two other males and one female Calypte anna.

 

I went to walk my westbound loop. It was only 63º f and a little on the humid side but I was already perspiring. Perhaps it was in anticipation of high temps today. Right now it's 96º outside and I can feel it penetrating into this room. Yep, 85º in here, I just turned on a loud window unit AC, it's dominating the headphones I'm wearing. Here goes turning that up 4 dB for now. All my instincts, they return. The grand facade, so soon will burn...

The loop...

Same doves, about the same time on the same lamppost as last weekend? Maybe so.

This mockingbird looks quite young.

Then there were the ravens.

First I heard this one talking up a storm.

Her and her partner on the other side.

Two lampposts west (about 80 yards or 73 meters) were these two, also yakking up a storm. I'm guessing the bird on the right is the male.

His partner took off into a tall pine tree in a small park area on my side of the street. This seemed to make the alleged male bird even more boisterous.

I walked back to the garden and wandered around a bit. Quite honestly, I think a number of weekday chores had caught up to me and I took a roundabout walk back to my car. As I pulled out of the parking lot I started feeling guilty about only walking a little over a mile, feasibly a mile and a half, so I decided to drive up to the top the hill and attempt to put additional distance in. Except...

I have been complaining about this road for, drum roll please... decades. In 2011 into 2012 I was bicycling this hill, sometimes at night. Anyway, I saw this as a good excuse and drove home. Tomorrow is another day and it's a long 4th of July weekend. At first I had planned on venturing out all four days of the weekend and putting one walk report together. Then I remembered how long it took me to get through this task last weekend. So, we'll see. Perhaps tomorrow I'll take the stairs to the top and see what all was accomplished on this road and the road exiting the campus to the west. Note the sidewalk fenced in on the right side of the image. They've been replacing that sidewalk, starting at the top of the hill, for over two years now.

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