Tiny worlds...

 Baby blue-eyes (Nemophila menziesii) sprung open this a.m.

And therein I found things I never saw clearly before I got a macro lens.

Little worlds are everywhere...

Probably globular springtails, see bugguide.net.

Tiny little lives, everywhere you look...

xoxobb

Flinging photos: Sierra Nevada lower-montane life in early March

 This appeared at our window last night & I almost had a heart attack:

It's a ceanothus silkmoth (ID thanks to @CrawliesWithCri), 3.5-5 inch wingspan. AMAZING.

Just look at that gorgeous abdomen! So stylish, jeepers.

After taking some photos w/my confused camera (why shooting at night??)

I went back inside & turned off our lights so it would stop being confused by us,

and continue on toward finding a mate, or whatever it would normally do. =)

So, walking in the dark house, smiling quietly,

my husband said, "Welcome to Samantha National Park."

I'm glad he understands. =)

Baby Blue Eyes and Friends

Photographed first baby blue eyes (Nemophila menziesii) on our property this year, March 3rd.

When I uploaded the photo, saw I captured one of

the so tiny (presumed) globular springtails in focus. So cute!

If you scroll back up to the flower photo, can you find the tiny bug?

For amazing shots of all kinds of these cuties,

much clearer, and much closer up,

check out Ed Phillip's photos on Flickr.

Truly, his work is superb,

and there's such diverse colors & patterns in these species.

He finds them in leaf piles on the ground. So, so cool.

Love and Death

Just this morning, saw evidence of a spidery romance on our window...

I think it's a female up top, and a male down below.

"So, Bob. How'd the date go last night?"

(no response)

"Bob?"

Presumed female looks as innocent as possible...

batting her perty eyelashes.

Dating in the spider world is risky business.

Other Visitors

Teddybears of the insect world, a bee fly appeared recently.

Super hard species to get good photos of--they're very speedy and restless. 

For much better photos:

The subfamily Bombyliinae has lots of the fuzzy types.

Check out this shot--WOW. SO CUTE!

We flung out some birdseed & got lovely visitors, including this spotted towhee (Pipilo maculatus).

The redberry (Rhamnus ilicifolia) is blooming--it's an extremely subtle event.

At least to us. Lots of tiny bugs are floating around it, so for them it's shouting.

Those teensy green blooms are barely discernible to my eyes.

Squinting hard I can pick out the white stigma to know which are open.

Miner's lettuce (Claytonia spp.) is also blooming happily.

 Another fan of the birdseed: a brave western gray squirrel.

 And last, early for Easter, a black-tailed jackrabbit (Lepus californicus) plays peek-a-boo.

Happy spring!

xoxobb

5" snow to green in 1 week + mystery kill = same ol' same ol'

Our greenhouse, post-snow, on April Fool's Day, appropriately enough. 

Shimmery: watching snow fall in the morning as things warm up. 

Meanwhile, under cover of snowness, still growing in the greenhouse:

Basil babies are SO symmetrical, I just love them. CUTE cotyledons. 

Close up of spinach babies, some still sporting their seed case. EXTRA cute.

I didn't crop out the yellow on the right so I'd remember to tell you that I FINALLY figured out
how to foil the mice et al. that would eat my baby plants.
Put 5 gallon buckets (yellow or otherwise) upside down on a table,
put plants on top of that. DONE!

I am SO not a designer, but I love how the lavender & oregano look together.

Happy accident.

I'm taking overview photos of the garden, now and then,

so MAYBE, later this year, I'll have some cool time lapse thing. Maybe.

Depends upon whether my garden ever stops looking like

an "AFTER TORNADO" photo. *sigh*

Was just wondering if we'd see any baby blue eyes (Nemophila menziesii)

post-snowfall, then spied this:

Just the one, but I'll take it.

Such a lovely flower, such a brief show.

I heart them.

And I found a partial spine & pelvis in the back of our property, near the violets,

so I'll probably be looking this pup up today to try & ID it.

This is near where I've seen most of the carnivores cruising through;

coyotes, foxes, bobcats, lion.

Makes you wonder what goes on in the night.

xoxobb

wildlife commute, t-peas & backyard bloomers

Morning commuters

Evening traffic

In the above, the bobcat was eyeing my 2 white hens.
Needless to say, I changed its mind re: what to eat.

Next time I saw it (about 1 hr later), it had other prey in mind. Yay!

Kitty (-like).

Not kitty-like. Giant eye-spots!

And off he goes!

Gorgeous. Can you imagine looking THAT GOOD naked?!? Wow.


T-pea

Gently plunked handfuls of been-soaking-3-days
sugar snap peas into the garden, yesterday.

This crop is nerve-wracking.

Everybody & their uncle LOVES to eat baby peas.

So, I covered the peas w/dirt, dried pine needles, dusty weeds,  

rusty chicken wire, and brainwaves of protection.

Hoping maybe 2 dozen baby pea plants survive to clamber skyward.

ALSO hoping that, like the last time I made a legume t-pea,

said cone-o'-plant will host a bird nest!


Backyard wildflowers

 Baby blue-eyes (Nemophila menziesii) are a favorite native wildflower of mine.
Jepson eFlora says that "Nemo·phila" derives from Greek for "woodland-loving."
How sweet.

 I love the tiny stamen (= white filaments + dark anthers*) shadows.

The above bugs ADORE these flowers.

Now go back up to the 1st flower shot.
See? Take your eye back a few inches & that bug is WAY hard to see.
Petals save lives.**

Okay. I owed you an update.
Busy this time of year.
Going out today and tomorrow and maybe tomorrow and def. next weekend.
As in outside.

Hope to see you out there!!
Please feel free to share any outings you've had or will have;
I think it all inspires people to get out more.

xoxobb

*omg, a botanical mystery novel title: Dark Anthers. You heard it here, first! It's MINE.
** a botanically or bicycle-y themed safety message. Pedals or petals save lives. Also mine. =)

man--the shots I miss to keep my chickens alive... (plus spring flowers)

                
I just chased off our local bobcat, who was SIX FEET outside my window, IN THE SUN. Holy cow. Whatta photo-op.

I hesitated 2 beats, DYING to pick up my camera vs. scare it off, but it was aiming at our Rhode Island red, Fanny, who was foraging innocently in our garden, another 20 yards (i.e. a few bobcat-bounds) away.

So,  I got up and knocked on the window. It turned 180 degrees and ran away. Here are the best shots I got, OB-viously not as good as I could have, but I'm quite sure the only reason I get to see this animal so regularly is that we have tasty, charming chickens luring it from the periphery.

 (per usual, click to enlarge)

(good reminder to get rid of that blue tarp...)

It also set me to wondering if we are now seeing the bobcat more than we had because the fox is gone. I learned years ago (from Kevin Crooks, http://warnercnr.colostate.edu/~kcrooks/, while he was becoming a Dr.) that in southern California, foxes and coyotes don't seem to share territories. Also, just looked it up on Wikipedia (I know, not a thorough literature search), and the ONE study they cite re: this issue indicates that bobcats are not competitively excluded by red foxes or coyotes. In Maine. Which means, for here, who knows? =)

So, on to other matters, like my documenting Spring in the Sticks via photos, and the promised red maids, and other participants...

Charming Calandrinia ciliata, a.k.a. red maids, making my flagstone step welcome and attractive.

Closer shot of actual flower and happy grass.

Also saw this, which is, I believe, red-stemmed filaree, Erodium cicutarium, a non-native little flower who's seed can stab through just about any footwear. A-MA-zing. AND, the dried, detached seed moves with changes in humidity to corkscrew into the soil. Incredible adaptation.

Next up is this charmer, which I did NOT expect. However, thanks to you and what I'm learning from this spring bloom log, I may learn to expect it this early next year.

Baby blue-eyes, Nemophila menziesii, is native. Be sure and click on the photo to see it's charming companion--v. cool bug with great eyes. Also, to see this flower's interesting anthers--I'd never noticed that before.

Not far from here is a place that gets nearly solid fields of the stuff, so when (and if) it's really going this year, I'll try and get some pics for you.

xoxo the biobabbler

P.S. Am right now surrounded by yellow-rumped warblers and western bluebirds, swooping and hopping all over our grasses.