Returning Birds...

Spotted two birds in our yard for the first time this year (they're returning from their wintering over): a male Bullock's Oriole, and a Northern Flicker. The oriole spent about an hour eating from our hummingbird feeders; a gorgeous individual that appeared to be in full breeding plumage. We're hoping he'll nest here this year. The flicker was doing what flickers do best: strutting around our yard eating ants. We could support dozens of flickers on our ant population!

Chuparosa...

The chuparosa (Beloperone californica) was much more evident this wekk than last week, and I was able to get a few decent photos (out of over 100 taken!). These are my favorites from the lot…

If you're not familiar with chuparosa, you may not realize that at any given moment you're only likely to find a few individual plants with lots of bloom on them. It's very common to find a good-sized bush with just a couple of blossoms – so it can be quite challenging to find them (since the bush is a non-descript gray color)! On yesterday's trip, I only saw three chuparosa with abundant blooms; one of them is in a photo below. All the rest of these were on plants that had less than a half dozen blossoms…

As always, you can click on any photo for a larger view…

Desert Visit...

Debbie and I ventured down to the Anza-Borrego Desert yesterday, wandering around near S-2, from Ocotillo to Scissors Junction. There was some difference in the wildflower situation from last week to this week, but not as much as I'd have expected. The biggest single difference was the desert dandelions, which have exploded in carpets near the Carrizo Badlands Overlook. Some other noticable things: the ocotillo near Ocotillo now have very visible buds, and a few individuals are actually in bloom; there are quite a few more desert poppies than last week, the blue phacelia (especially in the lower reaches of Oriflamme Canyon) are even better than last week (hard to believe!), and we saw just a few prickly pears in bloom. One big disappointment for me: I planned to hike up to one of the California poppy patches near the low end of Oriflamme Canyon, but it was unseasonably cold yesterday (in the low 50s on the desert) and very windy, and the poppies were all curled up tight – I could just barely make out the orange cast to the patches that last week were almost fluourescent. Oh, well; I'll try again next weekend…

Despite the windy conditions I was able to take quite a few photos. I don't have time to post them today, so I'll be dribbling them out over the next few days. For starters, though, here are a few photos of a common species of butterfly in the Anza Borrego (though I don't know what it is). At right is one feeding on a blue phacelia in the lower Oriflamme. At right below is one that I noticed because of the noise and motion: it was flappy so energetically that I could hear it from ten feet or so away. I took this picture before I understood what was happening – it was caught in a spider web. I carefully pulled it out of the web, and then pulled off all the strands I could see clinging to its legs and wings. It fluttered away, apparently no worse for the experience.

As always, click on any photo for a larger view...

Geek Truck...

A new license plate holder graces my truck – a gift from my friend (and co-worker) Bow Ruggeri. Service-Now is the company where I work. The sentiment expressed on the bottom could be my motto these days – I'm having ever so much more fun as a practicing engineer (again, at last!) than I ever did in any executive position…

Thank you, Mr. Bow! And if you see a big white Tundra pickup with this on the back, you'll know you're behind SlighlyLoony…

Is Al Gore in Town?

The “Gore Effect” struck Jamul and vicinity yesterday and last night: we had some very odd weather – unseasonably cold temperatures (28°F), rain (always welcome!), and … ice pellets. The NOAA forecast actually said “ice pellets”, which is something I'd never seen before. I'm not sure what the difference is between hail and ice pellets; what we got was the size of kernels of corn.

And we got a lot of them! Enough to color the yard, cover our roof, and in certain spots form “drifts” a couple of inches deep. Very weird! The photo at right shows the view up the hill in our back yard: mossy rocks, manzanita, and ice pellets. The dogs weren't sure what the heck was going on, until one of them (Miki) figured out that the ground was covered with one of his favorite treats: ice cubes. Then he started to eat our yard…

The photos below show the pellets along the side of our driveway, close up, and around our peach tree (which is in bloom right now). Very odd!

Mr. Gore: please stay in loony land, wherever that might be – and stay away from Jamul!

As always, click on any photo to get a larger view…