Marbled Godwit

Marbled Godwit, Limosa fedoa, feeding on bugs in the lush Spring foliage near the Mission River, San Diego, California. Ever wonder how many birds receive those odd sounding names? You guessed it, it's often based on the sound of their call. The Godwit has a call that sounds like kerwhit!..or alternately, godwit! Similarly, the Curlew (another long beaked shorebird) has a call that sounds like curleeeeeeuuu... It's weird seeing bird calls spelled out (complements of the Peterson's Guide) but, ironically, when I say it out loud, it does indeed remind me of the real thing. Who would have ever thought...

Pinstripes!

Agave americana var. albomarginata, Ocean Beach. Uncommon variegated form of Agave americana. Quite nice!

The Head Grunion Greeter

The grunion saga continues! Here is a picture of our illustrious grunion tour guide, Scripps Aquarium employee, and head grunion greeter herself, Caitlin with...you guessed it, a DEAD grunion! I was wondering if someone stepped on the poor thing, stumbling around in the dark trying not to scare off the spawning fish. As for Caitlin, she was very entertaining and as incredibly and contagiously enthused as the rest of us. She's currently applying to study at the Scripps institute and is hopelessly addicted to studying marine life.

Waiting for Grunion

Apparently the grunion send out "spotters," male grunion that swim up the beach and check for birds, people and other hazards. If the male "spotters" return unharmed, the spawning begins! Thus,the who batch of us Grunion Greeters (just for the night anyhow) are waiting in the dark or with little red lights so as not to scare the fish away. Once they get going, however, flashes, flashlights, etc. are fair game!

Grunion Jr.

Grunion fry (a.k.a. baby grunion hatchlings, not fried grunions...). Apparently, grunion eggs are programmed to swell and hatch when the water level reaches them and the waves stir them around. This plastic cup had damp sand in it and no apparent eggs to the naked eye. Yet, when you added water, the eggs all plumped up and when you agitated the cup, they all started to hatch! They just popped up seemingly out of nowhere. Nature is an amazing thing.

Mrs. Grunion

Female Grunion laying eggs in the sand, La Jolla Shores. The grunion come in on the high tide after the full and the new moon. The females dive into the sand to lay eggs and are surrounded by males. The eggs stay above the water line until the next high tide where the hatched fry make a bee line for the water.

No Need to Color Saturate!

Epiphyllum Radian Fire, A flourescent red Epiphyllum, in the back yard... Some things have no need of extra color saturation! Here's a partially backlit Epiphyllum that's blooming out back on the stone wall. I bought the originall cutting for $1 at the Epiphyllum Society sale in Balboa Park. Hard to beat that!

Beach Evening Primrose

Beach Evening Primrose, Camissonia cheiranthifolia, Ocean Beach, California. One of the loveliest wildflowers in the area. It's roots achor the sand dunes and create a stable environment for birds and other animals. It blooms from April through August.

Raku Turtle

Raku Turtle by Juried Potter - Pierre B., Pottery by Pierre. Note, the black areas are unglazed and gain their black coloration through the raku after burning process.

Crystalline Ice(plant)

Crystalline Iceplant, Mesenbryanthemum crystallinum. The crystalline iceplant is native to Africa, Western Asia and Europe and is quite salt tolerant. The leaves are edible and are covered with tiny bladders that sparkle in the sun like dew drops [click on the picture for a closeup that shows the little bladders]. In California, they have become aggressively invasive along coastal bluffs and along the beach, likely having escaped from ornamental gardens.

Shaking Out the Ears

Gizmo and I went out to dog beach on Sunday to give him some exercise. For a little dog, he sure does like water. He's shown here shaking out his ears.

Poppies in the Breeze

Poppies in the Breeze. There's normally a light ocean breeze that finds it's way up the canyon. The sun was bright enough that it didn't blur my picture and, instead, just gave the flowers all a little tilt to the left. The wildflower experiment worked better than I had ever expected and the back yard is awash in color!

It's Epiphyllum Season

Yellow Epiphyllum in the back yard, San Diego, California.

Seal Nap

Harbor Seal Napping on the beach. If there is one thing seals and sea lions like to do, it's nap. This seal is no exception!

Mutant Ninja Squirrel!

Mutant Ninja Squirrel in motion! California Ground Squirrel, Santa Rosa Plateau, California. Have you ever noticed how amazing, unnoticed details show up when you review your pictures on the computer? I snapped this photo way back in March. This was just a CA ground squirrel back then. On closer examination, I found that the little guy has a forked tail! Now squirrels appear to communicate both through their chirps and through active tail shaking. So, does a forked tail work any better? More intimidating perhaps? This guy was rushing off to confront another squirrel competing for the territory so perhaps...hmmm...beware squirrel who speaks with forked tail?! (If you didn't get the joke/slash reference to early American history, never mind...).

Swallowtail Butterfly Browsing for Food

Unidentified Swallowtail Butterfly browsing for nectar.

Coots in Motion

Coots taking a running start to get up in the air... Mission Bay, CA.

A quick picture for you all and then back to studying for finals...

Surfing

Nice ride on a nice wave, Sunset Beach, Hawaii.

Baby Elephants Hugging?

Two baby elephants at play. The little one kept trying to get up on the bigger one's head! The bigger one very patiently endured the abuse... They spent a lot of time following each other around and seemed to be really attached to each other.

Natural Beauty: a Passing Red and Black Butterfly

Red and Black butterfly pausing on a leaf...

Enjoying San Diego

A couple out enjoying the San Diego outdoors, Mission Bay. The couple that jet skis together stays together, right?

Sealion or Seal?

California Sea Lion pup, Zalophus californianus. So, how do you tell sea lion from seal? Sea lions have ears and walk on their flippers like awkward feet. Their flippers will angle downwards and support their weight. Seans rear flippers go straight back and their front flippers off to the side. Hence seals tend to undulate along the sand/ground rather than use their flippers for land propuslsion. Oh, and for you snugglers out there, sea lions like to snuggle one atop the other while seals almost always lie alone even in the midst of a colony.

Exercise for tomorrow: just for fun, go out, take a stroll and turn off all the labels and pretend like you're seeing everything for the first time. Touch the leaves and feel their coolness and texture. Feel the roughness of tree bark. Run your bar toes through the grass. Stop and look at the cool colors and shapes of bugs and lizards. Look at leaves and flowers really close and see the amazing structures that make them work. It's really fun to do every now and then just to remind you of the wonderful things around us that we normally zip by and take for granted.

Is Nature Wilder Than Fiction?

Fig Leaf with backlighting. I love the way the light plays along the veins like pulses of light coursing along an information highway. Who's to say fig leaves aren't exciting? ;-P

Octopus Sunday

Octopus, Honolulu, Hawaii. This little octopus is putting up quite a stare.

The Great Eggfly Butterfly

Great Eggfly, Hypolimnas bolina. These are found in Southern Asia, Australia, Japan and New Zealand. I suspect they received the rather unflattering name for their large egg-shaped spots on the wings. They are found in lightly wooded deciduous habitat.

Random Flowers from Mom's

Red flowers at Mom's. Mom's had this little shrub for years. I've no idea what it is but it is always blooming for Christmas and makes quite a show of it. The yard is still a little botanical garden after all these years.

All Puffed Up.

Puffin flexing his wings...

PIneapple

Pineapple, Foster Botanic Gardens, Honolulu, Hawaii.

Weedy Sea Dragon

Weedy Sea Dragon, Phyllopteryx taeniolatus. These little guys have evolved to match the seaweed they live in. They are native to the Southern reefs of Australia.

Surf Sunset

Surfing Sunset Beach.

Eye Spot

Eye spot on the wing of a butterfly! Ever notice the tiny, reflective scales that make up a butterfly wing? These are arranged to look like a large eye to scare off hungry birds.

Mammilaria

Mammillaria species blooming in the back yard.

Wildflowers in the Back Yard

Chinese Houses, Collinsia heterophylla.


Wildflowers in the back yard.

The wildflowers really burst into bloom this year. This is a North sloping canyon so it blooms a little later than out on the flatlands but wow, what a display! There are poppies, Chinese Houses, California Bluebells, Lupine, Daisies, Monkeyflower, etc... It's really fun. There was even an albino or two.

Discus

Discus, Symphysodon species. These are native to the Amazon river basin where there are three different species. They are social in nature and occur in large schools. They lay their eggs on flat substrate, typically leaves or pieces of rock, which they guard and fan assiduously. When the larvae/babies hatch, they live off of a slime secretion on their parents bodies, apparently from a few days to up to two weeks, before they transition to live food. These, however, are captive line bred and likely hybrids.

On Gossamer Wings

On Gossamer Wings
When you feel a little breeze,
or notice a tickle, or need to sneeze
or find your things are rearranged
or something seems a little strange
Look very closely and you might see
sparkly dust, or a buzzing bee:
Behold! a fairy with gossamer wings
has come to show you wondrous things!

~William Allingham~

Meare's Glacier

Meare's Glacier, Alaska. The ice really is blue and huge chunks like that make a nice wave in the water (kind of like a little tidal wave) when they hit! Pretty fun!

Ah, What to Post Today? Maybe a...

Turtle! I don't know what kind of turtle he was and silly me didn't photograph the name so he's just turtle. This one was at the Osaka Aquarium.

Whale Shark

Whale Shark, Rhincodon typus. These sharks are HUGE (some over 47,000 lbs.) but gentle. They are filter feeders, spending their days gliding through the water filtering out food. They are reputed to live upwards of 70 years of age.

Hawaii from the Air

Hawaii from the Air. Can you identify the islands? Hint: Two of the main islands are missing.

Heart and Seoul

Seoul, Korea on an overcast day. Seoul seems to go on forever. Imagine New York or Boston but horizon to horizon...with the same annoying traffic and all kinds of exotic sights and things to try out.

Jumping off a Bridge

Young man jumping off of a bridge, Iao, Maui. I think he overheard me say that it was way too shallow to be safe and that just goaded him on even more. Most of us have done something crazy along the way... This young man, luckily, proved me wrong and came out of the cold mountain water without a scratch.

Statue in Sao Paulo

Statue in Sao Paulo. I shot this picture out the taxi window.

So I went hunting on the Internet to see if I could figure out what the statue stood for. Best I could find was, "Famous statue right next to Ibirapuera Park. The “Central Park” of São Paulo. The statue is supposed to represent the conquistadors that settled Brazil.

Double Crested Cormorants

Double-Crested Cormorant, Phalacrocorax auritus, La Jolla, California. These fish-eating beauties are the the most pleasantly fragrant guests to have in the neighborhood but they certainly make a beautiful display against the whitened sandstone cliffs or as they skim across the water. It is, as you probably guessed, breeding season.

Playful Kiss?

Two baby Red River Hogs (Potamochoerus porcus) at play. These range from Gambia through South Camaroon where they live in dense vegetation.

Nap Time

California Sea lions (Zalophus californianus) taking a nap. California sea lions are wonderfully communal and really seems to love a great group snuggle.

Happy Easter!

Thoas Swallowtail, Papilio thoas. These are native to Costa Rica; shown here on butterfly bush.

Beautiful day out here with clear skies and a nice cool breeze. Kind of a disarming lead in to a pretty hefty 7.2 earthquake out in Mexicali. It was the longest (perhaps 30 seconds?) and the strongest quake I've been in so far. The house was shaking quite a bit and I was holding onto the cabinet to keep things from falling off the top. Normally, by the time you feel them, they're over but this one actually went long enough that you could have walked out of the house. Hopefully, that's it for a while. Surprisingly few things managed to tumble from the shelves but overall, it looks like everything is fine. The quakes over 8 must be something pretty fierce! They say Southern California is overdue. We shall see...

Oden Lantern

I bought this Oden Lantern in Tokyo many years ago (just the paper lantern, no stand, no light). I thought it was rather expensive at some $15 for paper lantern. I ended up coughing up a bunch more for a wrought iron hanger w/ light bulb at crate and barrel so I could actually use it. It is so ironic.

To do this posting, I went searching to see if I could find out what the lantern actually said (having thought it had something to do with Obon festival all these years). Well, I found the same lantern on the Internet selling for $99. Kind of makes you think someone is raking in some money here. In any case, this one is an Oden lantern that is hung outside the door of Oden restaurants/shops (think miso-ish soup with goodies like octopus and veggies in it...). It's kind of ironic.

Ocotillo Morte

A huge old ocotillo, toppled from age or perhaps from lack of water in the last dry spell, lies in a field of blooms, slowly decaying and nourishing the earth from which it sprang.

Crimson Sunflower

Sunflower, Rolando Street Fair. Ever notice that a Sunflower is really a composite flower with hundreds of separate little flowers, each feeding into one little seed?