Weekend walk report: The color of truth is gray

 Walks and picture taking along the way for Saturday, June 10th and Sunday, June 11th, 2023.

 Forget about symbolism, the moral ambiguity and impartiality of the color gray and how gray is emotionally distant and disconnected. Forget about your graying hair and how it makes you feel old. Let's not concern ourselves over studies which have found that people with depression or anxiety were more likely to associate their mood with the color gray, while happier people preferred yellow. You can always resort to this post for some happy yellow. We have this deal in Southern California called June Gloom that typically starts with a marine layer in May, which we coin, May Gray. However this shit’s been going on since April and by June it usually clears up between mid-morning or early afternoon but nope... not so fast, it's been hanging out pretty much 24/7 where I am. My 10 day forecast is showing it might finally be moving along in a week to 10 days from now. Then it will start getting too hot. "Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." ~Charles Dudley Warner.

 Saturday, June 10th

 I was out early, in the seven o'clock hour. The sky was so uniformly gray that no matter where I panned with my camera it couldn't find any focus. Here are some pictures taken on a dimly lit morning.

This female Calypte anna hummingbird was being bothered by and was going after what I believe was a American bushtit. Bushtit birds usually travel in flocks so it would be unusual to see a single bird. They are tiny, kinglet sized birds and I don't know what else it could have been. No, it wasn’t a kinglet. This tree was rather dense with foliage (despite these two images) and I had to pick one bird and stick with it.

 
Here she was presumably squawking at the intruder.

See, can't you tell? She's a little pissed off.

This mourning dove simply sat on the path as I walked by. There you go, the bird of peace.

Tecoma capensis, AKA, cape honeysuckle. Despite that name it's not closely related to the true honeysuckle. I have both a Tecoma capensis and a Lonicera japonica, known as Japanese honeysuckle here at home. The Japanese honeysuckle requires a lot of work at least a couple of times a year since it's so invasive but it smells heavenly.

The Japanese honeysuckle along side my back gate. Taken moments ago even though I'm certain I have photos on this computer somewhere.

There was some odd clutter in the garden. Some of it I'm not going to bother with here. I suspect film students because I've seen it before, they decide they are done and don't bother to pick up after themselves. However, this object somehow seems fitting for me. I'll see how long it lasts. Emperor Frog of Frog Fountain.

The famous male Calypte anna hummingbird known as Dusty was hanging out on his usual perches.

Not a lot of walking, again the weather and lighting were pretty awful so I decided to head home. But wait! Hours later, around 4:00 PM, I gave myself an ultimatum of sorts. Earlier I had gone out into my side yard and did a bunch of overdue work with a line trimmer, a weed whacker if you insist. I decided that I either had to go out and rake up my mess or, I could go for another walk. From inside the house I thought, it might even be a little sunny now. Well, I was wrong on that count but it was considerably brighter outside than it was in the morning. So, off I went...

 Saturday, June 10th, walk number two

Subjects were mostly the same, so not much to write. 

I have always found this sign a bit creepy weird but it somehow seemed ironic after a second trip to the campus.

On the way into the garden I took a slight detour to avoid some people and found that there were two Chilopsis linearis (Desert willow) trees that I'm not sure I've noticed before. If I have they have since become huge. I have a Chilopsis linearis just off the side of my garage and these two made me question just how big it might get. If you look closely near the bottom 3rd of this image you can make out the rooftop of the building behind it. So that's about 8' and there's several more feet of tree above my image.

More Dusty...

Here's a little better perspective on where the Emperor Frog statue is situated. Those are olive trees coming in from each side.

This mockingbird is almost always in and around this tree. You can also find him in my post from Sunday, May 21st. You can hear him singing throughout the garden. I whistle back to him frequently. I'm not sure if he's responding or thinking, quiet, idiot human. Probably the latter.

As the day draws closer to an end, for years, I have noticed more mourning doves hanging out in higher perches. I always assume that it's in anticipation of the setting sun.

It was good to add the second walk. It was even better not to rake. Raking sucks. Besides, my green waste bin is already full.

Sunday, June 11th (today)

Not out quite so early this morning, it was precisely an hour later than yesterday.

Look! I was able to get the camera to focus on the sky just to show you what kind of gray day was today. Both yesterday and today there was a very light amount of sprinkles coming down. Just enough so pointing a camera up at the clouds was not a great idea.

 Apache Plume (Fallugia paradoxa) in bloom.

Guess who? Not only was he singing loudly but he also let out what sounded like a child screaming. I was seriously taken aback for a moment. I could go into a huge dissertation on the subject and I won't but it's not at all surprising that mockingbirds may be adding children's screeching to their repertoire.

Lower in the same tree. I assumed these two mourning doves were a pair but they sure wanted to push the other one out of the tree. They went back and forth a few times.

This is a panorama, shot vertically at 70 mm, of the largest patch of Salvia darcyi. This is part of Dusty's domain and I'm kind of surprised he's not having to defend it more than he is. Typically by this time of the year there are a lot of Selasphorus rufus on migration into this garden and all over these plants. Some things seem a little wacky, some things just don't seem quite normal with birds and bees and flowers and trees.

I'm sure it's not a problem for Dusty but I think it's rather peculiar. Here was Dusty today. I talked a bunch to Dusty. Absolutely no questions in my mind about Dusty knowing me.

I did two laps on my typical lower campus loop today, just because. I still can't wander around on the top of the hill much because it remains fenced off for construction. I thought about doing the stairs and then thought better. So, two passes by the ancient car worshipers. My arriving onto the campus later than usual showed me just how many people show up for this, hanging out, talking about torque and superchargers, double clutching and cubic inches. Stuff like that.

Not just a hot rod, it’s a rock and roll hot rod.

The second time around I got the picture of this E-type Jaguar with the hood down. I remember a time in my childhood, I was probably 8 or 9, when this was my favorite style car. This particular model though is probably around a 71-74. Looking at this today my first thought was, there's no way I'm fitting in that car.

Beep-beep, beep-beep, yeah!

Weekend walk report: monarchs in the making

 Walks and picture taking along the way for Saturday, June the 3rd and Sunday, June the 4th, 2023.

Saturday. June 3rd

It was AM during the seven o'clock hour, about 55º f and there was a strange, brightly glowing orb high in the sky, almost white and only slightly filtered a brownish-orange from tropospheric pollution. Where did it come from and why was it there? Suddenly a distant recollection surfaced, oh yeah, the sun. Nous sommes du soleil, we love when we play.

First, I need to mention Canada goose, Kuppi, she was absent from her nesting area. Without being too specific I'll just say her eggs didn't make it. Fortunately. in a way, they weren't even close. I kind of thought from the beginning that her nest was in the wrong place and was too exposed. I was also bothered from the get-go that her mate was so far off. I know from experience that males can be especially aggressive as they protect their mate and their eggs, yet Kuppi's mate was 100s of yards away. On Saturday he was also nowhere to be found. If you don't know what I'm talking about, start here and work your way back to today's post. 

Onto the garden...

These wild roses are new to the front entrance of the garden. The wild roses just west of here, in the California natives, Salvia portion of the garden, have expanded a lot since I first started coming here, without human intervention. Although, I suspect these were planned and planted by the garden curator perhaps as recently as last fall.

Falling palo verde flowers skewered by cactus plants below.

I've been checking the narrowleaf milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis) for at least a few weeks for signs of monarch caterpillars and on Saturday I found several, without looking too hard. 

I didn't notice the green blob of poop until I got home.

Dropped it.

Since my back was killing me I didn't make a huge effort in checking for caterpillars. I counted 5, all in what has been the first and foremost location of Asclepias fascicularis plants. While being the oldest, it's no longer the largest patch of milkweed inside the garden.

Yerba mansa (Anemopsis californica), growing robustly near the pond.

I was trying to get a picture of male Calypte anna hummingbird, Dusty inside of these dying back Tagetes lemmonii plants and this American rosefinch caused him to fly off. He was also busy defending his territory from other hummingbirds.

Despite my lower back giving me a bunch of grief I decided I needed to get some walking in. I wasn't quite sure what was going on activity-wise on the campus but my spidey sense was telling me something was about to happen. Plus there were LA County Sheriff cadets all over the campus. That is not normal.

It's a Phazer! This guy did not have to worry about that 8 MPH speed limit. He was actually moving along slower than I was walking.

As I worked my way around my regular lower campus loop, I approached two cadets under a small event tent and asked what was happening. They had what I surmised was about 500 plastic bottles of water stacked behind them. I was told a 5K walk/run was about to take place. Turns out it was an annual event for Region North of the Los Angeles Unified School District and that encompasses 248 schools and 140,000 students. I decided it was a good time to leave. As I was exiting the campus a long line of yellow school buses were pouring in.

Back home as I was selecting and editing images for this portion of the walk report, I looked out the windows into my backyard and saw a pair of monarch butterflies, how appropriate.

Of course when stuff like that happens the photo op is usually over by the time I get outside. They mostly hovered overhead and taunted me until they flew off but I managed to get a couple of shots off. There was also a giant swallowtail, that one I missed entirely.

 

These two shots were taken on April 21st. Same butterfly in both pictures. The first image is on Echium candicans flowers and the second is on one of several ficus trees that borders my patio.

Sunday. June 4th

That crazy glowing orb that was high in the sky yesterday was gone again this morning. Although it's out now, mid-day.

Here are pictures taken on this quiet Sunday.

I'm not sure on this one. Female Selasphorus rufus and Selasphorus sasin hummingbirds look a lot alike. But since we're inside of the Selasphorus rufus migration into this area and when they're here there are usually quite a few, I'm gonna vote for rufous hummingbird on this one. Also, these Salvia darcyi flowers are what they are typically attracted to in the garden.

 This palo verde tree would probably have been startling to be next to when this happened. This is very close to the path into the garden. It appears the large branch fell hard enough to break that other branch.

Today I got a few shots off of male Calypte anna hummingbird, Dusty but it was quite dim on the lighting front and I was having a very difficult time getting the camera to focus.

Here's Calypte anna hummingbird, Dusty high up inside a California bay tree. There's a female Selasphorus rufus slightly above him to my right (not pictured) and a female Calypte anna hummingbird looking up at him from down below.

Here's the female Calypte anna.

 Here's a female Selasphorus rufus. You see that red dot? Yep, that's a laser. Don't be messing with Selasphorus rufus.

A larger crop of Salvia darcyi.

 Today I counted seven monarch caterpillars.

  These two desert cottontails seemed to be guarding the third bunny while it was eating. Of course I had to walk over there and mess it all up.

But I wanted to check out what is currently the largest patch of milkweed . I scoped out these plants for several minutes and didn't see any monarch caterpillars. This walkway is the evolution walk, those imprints in the cement represent fossils on a prehistoric timeline.

 On January 15th I said I believed this is Banksia ashbyi. I'll stick with that.

The grape arbor is grapeing.

This is a song sparrow (Melospiza melodia). I was talking to her but she did not sing to me.

I headed out of the garden to do my extended version of the lower campus loop and to get some walking in.

What the heck is going on with the palo verde trees? I guess branches are getting heavy with spring flowers and foliage. 

Once again, here come the ancient car worshipers.

This is a 1941 Cadillac Series 62 Convertible Sedan. 

This is a 1998 Lotus Esprit. Lotus designed the chassis for the DMC DeLorean. I never found the DMC or the Esprit to be very attractive cars.

Speaking of Lotus, this is a Lotus Elan 1600. My guess 1964.

I think with the top removed this is a nice looking car. Ford Thunderbird, between 1955 and '57.