I love spring

On the road

My commute home from work site--skirting the storm.

 It's so great to see the hills all green after years of drought.

Check out how the rainbow is doubling itself (at the bottom).

One of the cutest things I've EVER seen: baby killdeer

with its siblings and very busy parents at Merced National Wildlife Refuge.

Check out that TINY wing! =)

Snow goose, also at the Merced NWR.
That beak makes me think of a sock puppet, for some reason... =)

This native phlox was SO frothy & pink (on highway 166) we HAD to pull over

during our drive to Carrizo Plain NM.

The Carrizo Plain NM: a fascinating place.

Heaven for a minimalist, and I was anxious to visit, since

the last time we saw it, it was 4 years into a drought.

 Soda Lake stirred by wind.

Carrizo Plain had greened up nicely, thanks to El Niño.

Desert candle (Caulanthus inflatus), a species I'd never seen before, at Carrizo Plain NM.

Another thing we saw from the car & stopped to investigate. =)

We drove up elevation from Carrizo & found purple puddles of Phacelia. So great!

Closer shot of Phacelia--love those flamboyant anthers. =)

More wildflower puddles, north and uphill of the Carrizo Plain.

Back home

Band-tailed pigeons appeared under our bird feeder—that was a first!

They are SO much bigger than mourning doves (upper left corner).

Love their bright beaks & feet.

Ladybird beetle upon lilac. Ah, spring! =)

 The new climbing rose we just bought is making me swoon.

 I have a thing for anthers...

Wavyleaf soap plant (Chlorogalum pomeridianum) beading water beautifully. =)

Lovely variegated miner's lettuce (Claytonia spp.) on our property that caught my eye.

So stylish! =)

Last, a wild hyacinth (Dichelostemma capitatum) on our property.

What an elegant beauty.

I hope you all are having a marvelous spring (or fall).

It's a pretty amazing thing.

xoxoxobb

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

plant that blooms so hard you can HEAR it, and a tiny little beauty

 Tiny Beauty

More red stemmed filaree (Erodium cicutarium),

also known as stork's bill because of what their seeds look like which,

incidentally, can feel like STEEL stabbing through your sneakers.

It's a flat little plant, blooming this month, but I never knew

until I stared rudely at it w/a macro

how amazing its architecture is. Stunner.

(seeing individual pollen grains makes me swoon)

Blue anthers? Hot pink stigma? What?!? 

Little honey bee excitedly floating from flower to flower in February.

I'm curious why the bee is sipping where she's sipping.

Where does the lovely nectar come out?

Is it there so that the plant can brush against the bee's tummy

to pick up and deposit pollen?

These are my questions.

Hark, I Hear Spring!

Practically the only other thing blooming right now

is the Mariposa manzanita (Arctostaphylos viscida ssp. mariposa)

(with HUGE thanks to randomtruth for correcting my mis-ID!):

However, this plant blooms in SUCH GREAT abundance, you can HEAR it.

Honest.

You'll be outside in the garden, kicking around, pretending to work, when:

Hark! What is that low buzzing coming from the ENTIRE property?

That's when you realize there are LEGIONS of bees ALL OVER

these tree/shrubs, and giant bumblebees seem to be setting up territories

to guard their particular patch o' manzanita blooms.

Pretty smart to bloom early when the bees are THIRSTY for fresh nectar

and hardly anything else is blooming, so you get LOTS of attention.

And I didn't see this bug until I uploaded the photos:

And only took one photo of this clump, so that bug WINS!

No idea what it is.

Besides GREAT at being overlooked.

Just like the red stemmed filaree.

I love "discovering" amazing things that have been there all along.

Nature: the more you look, the more you walk around, gobsmacked.

Love it.

xoxoxo

bb

TINY seedlings, 1st bloom of 2014, joyful plants & LOTSA birds

TINY seedlings

Checked my carrots today, and was surprised to see a number of seedling volunteers.

How many newbies can you see?

Apparently, when it RAINS, things grow.

Who knew.

While exceedingly grateful for what we received,

I'm already hoping for more, more, MOAR!

Gonna get to near 70 dF this week—happy winter?

SPRINGY

Another harbinger of spring, this red stemmed filaree (Erodium cicutarium)

is the first thing I've noticed blooming this year at our house.

We'll guess and say I first noticed them 2/10/2014.

This one already dropped its petals (see them in background).

I didn't even KNOW they had blue anthers.

I only saw how cool its structure is

thanks to my lovely macro from the Darling Husband Man.

HOORAY!

And, in the greenhouse,

here are HAPPY, baby lettuce plants.

Hugs!

Don't they just look joyful? =)

I think I can hear tiny little choruses of "hooray!" coming from the greenhouse.

Like me, they know the odds of having made it into this thing called life are slim,

and they are PSYCHED they did.

BIRDS

And in celebration of the fabulosity of life,

a few more shots from

the Merced National Wildlife Refuge (January).

White-tailed kite. We brake for wildlife photographs.

You can see why this used to be called black-shouldered kite, yes?

Great horned owl, barely tolerating us.

See 'im?

White-faced ibis & American coot hanging out.

(you may wanna zoom in on that pup…)

Seems red is a popular eye color, there. I wonder why?

Geese, just a few: probably snow and Ross's geese.

Foreground is northern shovelers.

American coot, lookin' artsy. =)

How's THAT for an electric-red eye?

Good luck winning THAT stare-fight.

So, yes, I'm blogging 'cause I have a deadline and should NOT be blogging.

And 'cause I have SO many photos I don't share, and probably should.

Perhaps an intention for 2014 will be to post MORE of my photos, here.

Sharing life; sounds like a plan.

And, along those lines, 

congratulations to YOU on getting to play Life.

We are the lucky ones.

xoxobb