Poppies for Steven

My friend Steven went to the Antelope Valley Poppy Preserve in search of the beautiful California poppy (Escholtzia californica), but, unfortunately for him, there hasn't been much rain out here and the poppy preserve wasn't much to behold...

Well, I was in the same valley recently, but in an area that had gotten just a little more rain, and a result - I got to see some poppies. Its not the same as seeing them in real life... but this will have to suffice for now:

Cactus Flowers pt2

Need I say more?

Saved!!

What a lucky snake! Lucky for one thing that the driver at the wheel loves snakes. For another that the driver was alert to the possibility of snakes sunning themselves on the road and alert enough to swerve just in time to avoid it.

Can you see the tracks of the car which show how narrowly this fellow was missed?!?

And here's a close up of the lucky gopher snake (Pituophis catenifer), most likely unaware that it just stared death in the face. All it cares about now is that it has to stare at my camera...

Warbler Days

Spring is certainly here and life is exploding in our yard. We've seen an adult desert iguana (Dipsosaurus dorsalis), which means the heat has arrived (i.e., hotter than 95F or so). Our mesquite trees are blooming, and that means that all is well with the world.

Our matriarch mesquite is an amazing tree. It has produced seed to sprout a number of other mesquites, all of which provide nice shade in the hot summer days. Now is also their time to shine. They're flowering, which brings out a great diversity of native bees and honey bees. We walk out onto our porch in the mornings and can hear a low buzz from all the bees flying around the trees. Today was a great treat because we also had a number of insect eating warblers taking advantage of the trees' multitude. There were probably about 15 warblers, mostly Wilson's warbler (Wilsonia pusilla), hopping around among the branches, actively feeding on all the insects.

Here's a photo of the Wilson's warbler. Not so good; but those guys just wouldn't stay still. There are about 20 of these birds in our yard right now, feeding amongst all our trees and shrubs. They must be migrating north right now.

Also found out there was a Townsend's warbler amongst the Wilson's. See?

These aren't the greatest photos... wish I could somehow express to you how magical the birds and the bees are right now! Its amazing!

Long-nosed leopard lizard

Here's a long-nosed leopard lizard (Gambelia wislizenii) that we found while working in the desert last week. Poor guy was pretty dehydrated and tired (there's a drought going on this year and everything is having a tough time of it).
I guess he was conserving his energy, I wasn't appearing to be much of a threat, so he let me get pretty close to him to take this picture. He even jumped up onto me as he was trying to catch some flies that were landing around us.

WindyDaysInSoCal

The hubby and I have been working in a beautiful area recently. Can't tell you where it is because that's confidential. If I tell you, well then I'd have to kill you. And we don't want that, do we??

You can't really understand the humor of the pic of the hubby unless you could also get the full effect of the wind that is whipping past us at the moment the photo was taken. The wind was probably up to a constant blustery flow of 60+ mph!!! I was getting pushed backwards at one point.

I think the pic of the oak gives a good impression of the force of the wind. Mighty! By the way, that's a blue oak (Quercus douglasii), which is one of the highly valued oaks down here in SoCal... just in case you were interested.

Dedicated to Opuntia

A big welcome to all my family and friends!

I've set up this blog essentially to share photos and maybe some avi's of my world with you all. Instead of cramming your email systems with all my silly pix of flowers, trees, lizards, etc and some movies of swimming tadpoles and walking turtles; I'll instead post them here so that you can look at your leisure and level of interest...

Hopefully this site has enough space for all the pictures I'd like to post. We shall see!

My first photo is dedicated to a cactus. This is based upon a question asked to me by the hubby, "Does the world really need another picture of a prickly pear cactus flower?" Obviously, my answer must be, "YES!"

This is no ordinary Opuntia flower. Its called a cristate flower, which makes it look oblong instead of rounded and rose-like.

I can certainly predict that I'll be posting several more cactus flowers, including opuntia, so stay tuned!