Wow, that’s a beautiful picture. I would imagine you could publish and sell that as a poster! Thanks. I’m from Michigan as well from the West part. We have friends from North Central Saskatchewan to who were missionaries in Africa. Beautiful place.
Um … I think all of you up there in the center of this big continent are a race of super-humans, capable of surviving almost anywhere. I think I must be a tender semi tropical kind. Think I’ll stay right where I am.
@klw I have a gardening friend in San Diego who is also a keen birder and insomniac. As a result he is up before dawn most mornings filming and photographing lots of interesting birds, most of which I’ve never seen. He posts these most mornings on his Facebook page (Ken Blackford). Interestingly he was raised in Michigan and like me is from a huge military family.
Yep. Born and bred. Now not far from Lansing. Grew up closer to WIndsor.
Hope you got to see a lot of the state, while you were here. I think it’s a stunner.
Ha! There’s something to be said for acclimatization. I think you tropical types have the superhuman gene! Anything above about 72 F and I start to sweat and melt into incoherence… I’m a sucker for good bird photos but rarely have the time to take them myself–usually too busy collecting data in the field to “stop and smell the roses”. Regrettable.
Super humans. Ha! I see your temps and read about @SkovandOfMitaze’s outlander adventures, and I blush at my delicate nature.
I can always put on another sweater. Our winters, though have changed drastically in the last 10 years. Snow beats ice any day, and we’re getting more ice now. Awful.
To quote Mark Twain, “The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco.”
A lifetime ago, I was a publishing exec and signed a deal with a company in Finland to reprint our hockey magazine there. For some reason, he insisted on signing the deal in person. It was August in Dallas. We took him to lunch, and he melted in the parking lot before we could make the restaurant door.
I’ve been away from Dallas for 10 yrs, but that sounds like the winters there. Ice storms were more common than snowstorms. I grew up driving on snow and now live in NM and drive in snow in mountains to go skiing. Snow at least gives you a bit of traction. Ice is practically frictionless. Driving to work in a Dallas ice storm, I spent more time looking in my rearview mirror for idiots than I did looking at the road in front of me.
I seem to be rather unusually unaffected by temperature: I can wear my typical field clothes (fishing shirt over t-shirt, lightweight long pants over shorts, socks and sneakers) and be reasonably comfortable in anything between 30 and a humid 110 (okay, I want gloves for the low end of that because I cease to be able to operate the camera). Endothermy can be nice.
Thursday
Gambel’s Quail
Virga (rain evaporating before hitting the ground)
Desert wash, showing the rippling
Red-shouldered Hawk
Oleander
Roadrunner footprint (yes, there were coyote prints going the other way on the same trail)
Landslides
Cactus wren nesting in a cholla at Anza-Borrego Desert SP Visitor Center
Anza-Borrego Desert SP Visitor Center area
Black-throated Sparrow
Beavertail (an Opuntia)
Black-tailed Gnatcatcher
Female Verdin
Costa’s Hummingbird
Another Cholla
White-winged Dove
Valleys are wetter than slopes
Acorn Woodpecker
Stellar’s Jay
Allen’s Hummingbird
Cerithideopsis (tall, dark shells), Melampus (pale brown, lower left), and some intertidal isopods. (Tijuana Slough, we could see the wall [and the bull ring], and had border patrol helicopters flying over)
More of the slough
Juvenile Yellow-crowned Night-Heron
An aster-like plant
Least Sandpiper
Kellettia
Nuttalia
Dallocardium
Mytilus californianus
Western Willet (southern San Diego Bay)
Western Sandpiper
Western Sandpiper, Short-billed Dowitcher, and Black-bellied Plover
Western Sandpiper (there were about 400 of them), Black-bellied Plover, and Red Knot
Black Skimmer
Semipalmated Plover
Marbled Godwit
Least Tern (background is a mix of Caspian, Royal, Elegant, and Gull-billed)
Loved all the cool desert birds! Nice work.
Wow, you can add to a classy nature phot book or calendar too! Lots of good example in this whole thread too. I am enjoying them thanks
I now have enough for birds that a could do (almost, some of them are not great) a picture-a-day calendar (this trip brought it from ~350 to ~380).
For shells, I could probably do a 3-year calendar, though it would get kind of repetitive to a non-expert (members of Prunum for almost a month and members of Turbonillinae for even longer).
I was too lazy to type out everything while waiting for it to load. The mini pinecone looking flower with yellow petals popping out is “ yellow eyed grass “. The white flowers with green tips is that loom like stars are “ starry white top reed/grass” , the tall one with lots of bumpy bids and a bit of purple is liatris, the roundish white ones are “ white bog button “ and I don’t remember what’s all in there. Did mostly landscape shops from just below flower level to make it feel more 3d and some just above for the same feeling. The spider is the tropical or weaver. Really hairy looking spider that reminds me of a “Beetles” caricature. If I spelled that British band wrong i apologize. I don’t think I’ve ever actually listened to them.
Friday
Agave
Orange-crowned Warbler
Mission Trails Regional Park
An herbaceous plant
Male Costa’s Hummingbird
California Thrasher
Lesser Goldfinch
Wrentit
Spotted Towhee
Yellow-breasted Chat
California Towhee
Black-chinned Hummingbirds
Rufous-crowned Sparrow
California Gnatcatcher
An Abalone at the Birch Aquarium (meeting field trip)
A Ctenophore
A Garibaldi
A mathematically-challenged asteroidean
Do not step here!
(a stonefish)
Love those orangish flowers in the next to the last pic. They make me think of orchids.
They are. It’s the “orange/yellow fringed orchid “Platanthera ciliaris“. They grow best , and in abundance in pine woods.