Good morning, all. Another beautiful day here. Forty nine outside and rain. Lots of rain. Expected to get up to forty nine today. And oncoming days should be no more than seventy two, mostly fifties and sixties. My dad has been asking about Christmas. Kind of odd as he has not celebrated Christmas in years.
Tried to take Abby to the duck pond park last night and she refused to get into the car. Sigh. I was afraid that might happen as various factors, from my schedule to the heat, have disrupted the nightly car-ride schedule we had established for at least a couple weeks straight.
I think I may have this: The “My Last Dog Was Perfect” Syndrome.
I keep thinking how perfect Tess and Cowboy were.
(They weren’t, of course, though they were good and were open to new experiences.)
Another virtual port news conference this morning – and I completely forgot about tuning in last night to a union powwow. Will have to get filled in on what was said.
And a strong rolling earthquake greeted us this morning.
The header is a gilded flicker on a saguaro cactus. Locally we have northern flickers, the yellow-shafted version (yellow feathers under wings and tail); growing up we had the red-shafted version in our yard in Phoenix sometimes, and I was hoping to see some on this trip. I never did, but I saw quite a few of this one, which also has yellow feathers.
I chose to travel in April to avoid the heat. I hoped to see a lot of blossoms (and I did). I particularly wanted to see the palo verde tree (which was extravagantly in bloom) and the ocotillo (which were also in bloom); I hadn’t researched when those bloomed. But I knew that the saguaro bloomed in May and June, so I researched to see if they might start in April, and what I read was that a few might start as early as the last week of April, and so I hoped to see some in bloom, because I really love the saguaro blossoms, and sure enough, perhaps 2 or 3% of them were blooming before I left Arizona. A few started blooming while I was in Tucson, but I really had to look for them, just two or three plants in all. By the time I was back in Phoenix, a few more were blooming, but again very few. This one was at the Superstition Mountains.
The saguaro blooms in the evening; it is pollinated by bats. Each blossom closes by noon or early afternoon the following day, and lots of birds like to feed from it. Following the blossom is a red fruit, which will burst open on the cactus, and a whole lot of animals like that. This flicker did feed from the bloom, but I like this photo better. I also saw a thrasher and white-winged doves feeding from this cactus or other ones. And I saw bees buzzing around the blooms, too.
I entered this photo as one of five in a juried show locally; last year three of my photos got into the show, but apparently this year they rejected all of them. 😦 It’s different jurors each year, I think, and judging is by nature a bit subjective.
Popular bird pose & prop; is there a studio where bird families go for those portraits?
It’s a mosquito repellant day for me. These new US arrivals fly right up in your face, but by then they’ve already secretly bitten you in a couple places.
Peter, that one is the Gila woodpecker, and I saw quite a few of those too! They look quite a bit like our local red-bellied woodpecker, but with several differences. Indiana has seven species of woodpecker, and Arizona has about twice as many, but with few that show up in both states. We both have the hairy and downy woodpeckers, we both have the northern flicker (but theirs is the red-shafted and ours the yellow-shafted, and they used to be considered different species), and I think we both have the yellow-bellied sapsucker, but they also have several other sapsuckers.
Arizona doesn’t have our most interesting woodpecker, the pileated, and Indiana doesn’t have their most interesting one, the acorn woodpecker.
Wandering Views 
What a fun photo!
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Yes, a lovely photo!
Good morning! It’s a cloudy with sprinks start to the day. Light jacket weather here. We are getting a touch od the Francine tropical depression.
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We are supposed to get to 82 here. We have quite a bit of smoke, too. We may feel the effects of the tropical storm by the weekend.
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Good morning, all. Another beautiful day here. Forty nine outside and rain. Lots of rain. Expected to get up to forty nine today. And oncoming days should be no more than seventy two, mostly fifties and sixties. My dad has been asking about Christmas. Kind of odd as he has not celebrated Christmas in years.
mumsee
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Your weather sounds like Christmas weather here!
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cooler here too
thanks for your PNG sharing, Janice
jo
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Ah, cute picture!
Tried to take Abby to the duck pond park last night and she refused to get into the car. Sigh. I was afraid that might happen as various factors, from my schedule to the heat, have disrupted the nightly car-ride schedule we had established for at least a couple weeks straight.
I think I may have this: The “My Last Dog Was Perfect” Syndrome.
I keep thinking how perfect Tess and Cowboy were.
(They weren’t, of course, though they were good and were open to new experiences.)
Another virtual port news conference this morning – and I completely forgot about tuning in last night to a union powwow. Will have to get filled in on what was said.
And a strong rolling earthquake greeted us this morning.
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Earthquake came in at 4.7 (centered north of Malibu).
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The header is a gilded flicker on a saguaro cactus. Locally we have northern flickers, the yellow-shafted version (yellow feathers under wings and tail); growing up we had the red-shafted version in our yard in Phoenix sometimes, and I was hoping to see some on this trip. I never did, but I saw quite a few of this one, which also has yellow feathers.
I chose to travel in April to avoid the heat. I hoped to see a lot of blossoms (and I did). I particularly wanted to see the palo verde tree (which was extravagantly in bloom) and the ocotillo (which were also in bloom); I hadn’t researched when those bloomed. But I knew that the saguaro bloomed in May and June, so I researched to see if they might start in April, and what I read was that a few might start as early as the last week of April, and so I hoped to see some in bloom, because I really love the saguaro blossoms, and sure enough, perhaps 2 or 3% of them were blooming before I left Arizona. A few started blooming while I was in Tucson, but I really had to look for them, just two or three plants in all. By the time I was back in Phoenix, a few more were blooming, but again very few. This one was at the Superstition Mountains.
The saguaro blooms in the evening; it is pollinated by bats. Each blossom closes by noon or early afternoon the following day, and lots of birds like to feed from it. Following the blossom is a red fruit, which will burst open on the cactus, and a whole lot of animals like that. This flicker did feed from the bloom, but I like this photo better. I also saw a thrasher and white-winged doves feeding from this cactus or other ones. And I saw bees buzzing around the blooms, too.
I entered this photo as one of five in a juried show locally; last year three of my photos got into the show, but apparently this year they rejected all of them. 😦 It’s different jurors each year, I think, and judging is by nature a bit subjective.
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Beautiful picture. At first I thought it was the cactus wren, but they don’t have the red markings.
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BTW – that’s not my photo. It’s from birdz-world.blogspot.com, but the blog has been removed.
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Popular bird pose & prop; is there a studio where bird families go for those portraits?
It’s a mosquito repellant day for me. These new US arrivals fly right up in your face, but by then they’ve already secretly bitten you in a couple places.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Peter, that one is the Gila woodpecker, and I saw quite a few of those too! They look quite a bit like our local red-bellied woodpecker, but with several differences. Indiana has seven species of woodpecker, and Arizona has about twice as many, but with few that show up in both states. We both have the hairy and downy woodpeckers, we both have the northern flicker (but theirs is the red-shafted and ours the yellow-shafted, and they used to be considered different species), and I think we both have the yellow-bellied sapsucker, but they also have several other sapsuckers.
Arizona doesn’t have our most interesting woodpecker, the pileated, and Indiana doesn’t have their most interesting one, the acorn woodpecker.
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“Yellow-bellied sapsucker” sounds like an insult. “You yellow-bellied sapsucker!”
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Kizzie, haha
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All those birds do a lot of damage on wood surfaces and trees. The pileated is fun to see.
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Kizzie, I use that phrase ALL the time when playing games and someone blocks or bests me. 🤣
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