One last one, a blue heron at the end of the dock that was not too happy with me:
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All of these are so vivid.
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Mine was seen in Wales
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A little different view of the same scene this morning. There is a ship channel on the other side of the little spoil island, and this is a liquified natural gas ship going it to a LNG plant possibly then headed to Europe, ship is Liberian flagged.
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Saturday
Point Loma Nazarene University:
Allen’s Hummingbird
Red-masked Parakeet (introduced and now established, from Ecuador)
Female Hooded Oriole
Male Hooded Oriole
Allen’s Hummingbird
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Sunday
Patellogastropod limpets
Aplysia (sea hare, it is about 30 cm long)
Polyplacophoran (chiton)
Littorinid
An intertidal isopod
Lesser Goldfinch
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This is like day 50 of it rains if consecutively for a few hours each day. We normally get a little bit less rain and it’s normally at night. This year it’s been coming harder and during the day. But I enjoy sitting on my back porch and feeling the breeze and listening to the rain.
One of the branches I hiked yesterday.
While hiking through this forb covered bit of beach I came across a neat flower I’ve not seen before. I am thinking it’s some kind of spiral orchid but maybe not. I’ll have to find them again and get better pics and takes notes on things like stem texture, if the leaves are hairy or not and so on.
The trail went from fairly clear to barely visible.
But this is the flower.
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Monday
Big Morongo Canyon
Juvenile male Hooded Oriole
Male Hooded Oriole
Female Hooded Oriole
House Finch
Subadult male Black-chinned Hummingbird
White-winged Dove
Black-throated Sparrow
California Towhee
California Thrasher
Male Black-chinned Hummingbird
Female Hooded Oriole
The oasis at Big Morongo Canyon
Screwbean Mesquite
A lizard
Mule Deer
Vermillion Flycatcher
Sunset (near Amboy)
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My Cereus monstrose (actually a crested form of another species) bore these two flowers open when I took the dogs out at 6 this morning.
Yesterday the haul was also two open flowers.
The day before tgat it opened its first flowers of the season
It is also the season for naked ladies around here (AKA Amaryllis Belladonna). One of the first this year to bloom.
A related African bulb is this one getting ready to bloom for the first time for me, six years from fresh seed given to me by my friend Ken. We think it might be Brunsvigia littoralis though he gave me two kinds so will wait to see for sure.
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Tuesday
Northwestern Arizona
Crissal Thrasher
Hills just northeast of Las Vegas
What Mesas look like from above
A warm front
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Some kind of Bolete. I’m not sure. Never seen it before but it was really beautiful and unless it’s a bicolor , and maybe it is, it’s not edible. It won’t kill your, but typically the blue test in boletes means toxic enough you’ll be sick.
Indigo milk cap. One of the few true blue mushrooms and really pretty even when all beat up. In perfect condition these edible mushrooms are extremely pretty. The milky blue substance will dye you a little bit though.
This species of bolete has some of the coolest angular pores I’ve seen. Often the undersides of mushrooms are overlooked but they and the stalks can often be really pretty.
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Another golden silk orb weaver spider. You can tell that they were raising their arms trying to appear bigger and scarier. But to me it just looks like hugs xd.
Really colorful undersides of these “crawling flowers” as well. This one caught a dragonfly, possibly the blue dasher, and like what you’ll typically notice spiders quickly decapitate their prey. The head just happen to fall down and land on its wings which they usually tear off as well.
Earth star puffball mushroom. Not edible.
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This reminds me of something… what was it, now? Oh yes, I remember:
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Found this really pretty “American Groundnut” growing today.
Also this bee on it. I think it’s a bee anyways. Not familiar with it. Was really getting in those flowers.
A tiny jumping spider on a winged sumac. You can see the “wings” along the branches.
You can make “sumac lemonade” with the berries but they have to be ripe and it can’t be after a rainfall. You don’t eat the berries, it they are a bit sour with this substance they produce and cost themselves with. So you essentially wash the berries off and add sugar to the water and then pour it through a cheesecloth and add ice and drink.
The liatris is coming in nice. Some are already over 6 feet tall.
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Not sure why lately it keeps rearranging the pics from their original position.
I get that on various platforms too. Here I just post one at a time and have no problem I wonder what flower that one was, same as the first?
The first four pics is the pea flower.
The next few pics is liatris.
The last pic is berries of the winged sumac.
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Thanks for all your gorgeous nature pictures!
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