What? MORE Flippin' Flowers?

Yes, yes, I was out tracking down wildflowers again, and you're about UP TO HERE with it, right?

Tough b'noogies.

Where was I? Wildflowers! So, a friend of mine, Terry, made the near-fatal error of mentioning she likes wildflowers too. So, I kidnapped her from her place and we were off! Barely got out of eyeshot of Terry's place when the first blooms of the day were spotted. Looking them up much later, they turned out to be Foothill Prettyface, in this case nearly dowdy flower, when compaired to it's cousin, which were found later in the day.


Foothill Prettyface
Right nearby the Prettyface was a deceptively pretty flower with an EVIL agenda. Here it is looking all innocent.


Innocent Pink flowers by daylight…
Here that flower is again, later in the day, strangling whatever it can get itself twined around. Evil stuff. Here's the thing's M.O., it’s not green because it doesn’t make its own food as any honest plant does - nay, the Twining Snake Lily steals nutrients from other, more self respecting plants. Bwah, ha, ha, ha, ha! Isn't Twining Snake Lily just the best wildflower name ever?


Evil Twining Snake Lily, at the end of the day, strangling a mate. Click on the photo & see how its pink strands 'twining' on another flower
I exaggerated my description – just a bit.

Next stop, Starbucks; one does not live by flora and fauna alone.

Next we hit my recently discovered stomping ground, Ice House Road, which winds it's way up the mountain. There Terry enjoyed the Indian Pinks, Western Wild Flax, Dogwoods and vistas of blue lupin.


Terry enjoying the Lupin on Ice Hill Road
More of same - just crying out for a stanza or two of The Sound of Music, isn't it?


Hillside full of bluish Lupin
We headed further up the hill and started looking in earnest (translation, drive slowly, look out the window). Here’s what we found.


Brewer's Monkeyflower, way tinier than
I suspected – only about ¼ inch across

The fancy, citified Mountain Prettyface (the HUSSY)
Now, there was one fancy little patch of monkeyflowers we passed on the mountain road. They were Yellow and White Monkeyflowers and they were stunning! The bad bit was they weren't anywhere near a place that either had a pull-out nearby for the car, nor was the road wide enough to safely walk along the road. So... that left no choice but to do a u-turn and drive sort-off off-road. I thought my idea would work, but when I stopped the car, unfortunately, my Honda was at a... sort of a 45 degree angle. I would have had to open the car door by pushing straight up... uh... decided to stay put. I couldn't get a shot of the Monkeyflowers but here's someone else's shot of them.


Yellow and White Monkeyflowers
The photo doesn't even do the patch we saw justice - it was like a yellow and white blanket snuggled over green grass. Oh well - maybe I'll see some within shooting distance, next year.

There were some other flowers we spotted too, here are some of them.

Newberry’s Penstimon
Rainbow Iris
Mountain Misery
Isn't that a great name for a plant, Mountain Misery? Though it has the white daisy sort of flower, it is not really known for its flowers, but for it's heavily scented ferny leaves. The scent - which I rather enjoy really - is heavy and said to give a headache if lingered around.


Globe Gillia
After a tough day out on the trail wrangling pink, blue and yellow blossoms, a girl needs a good meal. So it was back to Terry's spread for some hot barbeque served up by Terry's wife Terry (otherwise known by me as Terry2 or T2). The beef was WONDERFUL, grass fed beef which they bought on the hoof. Yum! Nice ending for a lovely day.

BUUUUZZZZZZZZZZ

I was out in the garden, watering the plants and listening to what I thought - don't ask me why - was water running in the background. I ignored the persistent sound at first, then it occurred to me that having had a leaky pipe some weeks ago, maybe part of my house or yard was floating away, and me out there ignoring it. So... I turned around and there it was, the big old Hawthorn tree, only now...

Completely covered over with white blossoms and
the loud thrum, thrum, thrumming of honey bees

When the blossoms are up, there is work to be done

I have no clue what the lady bug was after... smaller bugs inside the white flowers perhaps
The entire tree was alive with hundreds and hundreds of insects; honey bees, bumblebees, beetles, lady bugs, strange sorts of flies, wasps, all busy tearing into the flowers and quite happy it ignore the fat human that was nosily peering into their business.

I only wish I could have gotten a photo of the HUMONGOUS black bumblebees that also worked over the tree. The whole blooming thing only lasts about a week so there is a lot of work to be done in a short span of time. Flowers this week, red ripe berries come Autumn, when the birds move in and do their thing.

Very happy it was bees and not a broken pipe.

On to Lake Tahoe and a BIG Surprise

After a completely successful trip to hotter-than-hades Del Pueblo Canyon, it was off to Lake Tahoe, in hope of finding alpine birds. On the way up we visited Ice House Road, where we saw, but I got no decent photos of, a Singing Lazuli Bunting and not much more bird-wise. I did shoot some nice flowers which always sit still for me.

Dogwood
Indian Pinks
Next we bee-lined up to Tahoe. The first thing of note was that it is still barely Spring up there. There was a fair amount of snow on the ground. We stopped at Emerald Bay, always breathtaking, even on the 77th visit.

The Always Lovely, Emerald Bay
Not much in the way of birds there, but there was a bizarre flower, of sorts.

Snow Plant
We hoped for a Bald Eagle or two but saw none of the big buggers there. I caught a glimpse of a bookin' Clark's Nutcracker but that was about it. For no good reason here's a bit of a creek by Emerald Bay.


Don checks out the scenery for winged types
We got our campsite at Fallen Leaf Lake, where we stayed last summer then went out roaming. I was, as usual, a stick in the mud. Don hiked over to a spot we had luck with last time, but it was late in the day so there wasn't anything there. We did see something interesting though... more on what, later. The next morning we drove up to Squaw Valley where I managed a quick shot of some Cassin's Finches - but only managed so-so shots.

Cassin's Finch - the rather drab female
We hit another alpine meadow we had luck at last time, and while Don hiked off to find something new, something new flew in to stare at ME for a bit - a beautiful, male Evening Grosbeak. I was livid when I saw the awful photos I got of the bird, and I have no idea why. The photos look like there was grease, or something on my long lens.

Crap Photo of an Evening Grosbeak - *sigh*
Now here's why some people go mental; a crummy photo of a sparse grosbeak I've only seen twice before in my life. BUT, when I used the same equipment for a shot of a bird I see every time -forgive the vulgarity - I wipe me bum, now that shot came out sharp and clear.

Hairy Woodpecker - Great Shot, why, oh why?
See? I have no idea what went wrong with my Grosbeak shot. Couldn't you just SPIT?

But still, it was a lovely drive - I don't often get up to the snow as much as I have this past year. Hopefully I'll continue being so daring. One winter white vista overlooked a snowy, iced over lake. I didn't even have on a jacket - so I guess it is spring.

Ice on the Lake - ICE!
Our last Hurrah for the weekend, we decided to dart over the State line, in search of Black-billed Magpies. Remember, the birds in my yard are the yellow-billed species - I only see Black-billed species when I go out-of-state. So Don and I forged on. Just as we were barreling past downtown Reno, there was flash as a lovely Black-billed Magpie flitted over the freeway in front of us.

"HURRAH!"

We did a 180 and headed right back into California.

NOTE: you don't want to expose yourself to Nevada any more than you have to.

We hit some semi-desert on our way out, but other than a dime-a-dozen Savannah Sparrow there were no birds to speak of, but there were some awesome wildflowers. This Alpine Waterleaf was there, in the desert-like sand, with it's flowers all huddling in an apparently frightened mass at the base of its leaves in the shade.

Alpine Waterleaf - don't the flowers look frightened?

And there were some HUMONGOUS fat flowers that looked like a cabbage/fig hybrid, crossed with a rose. I was baffled by the things, but Don said they peonys and he was right.

Western Peony
Ah HA! Bored with this rather mundane scenario? We'll switch back to Saturday night....

As I stated earlier, we stayed overnight at the Fallen Leaf Lake campground. A bit before twilight we settled ourselves by the HUMONGOUS meadow there, waiting for a Lesser Nighthawk or two to fly by, but none of the annoying birds chose to do so - bugger.

Anyway, after a bit, there was a man and a woman crossing the meadow from the east, with their two dogs, one being a yappy, frisky pug. Lovely, yes? OK. From the west of the meadow I looked over and saw this...

In the twilight, a brown Black Bear
A HUMONGOUS Black Bear! Excited, I jumped out the car and ran up to the rustic meadow fence with my long-lens camera. I was totally jazzed, after all, any second now, the frisky doggies were going to meet up with the lumbering bear. Oh Joy! I could just imagine the wonderful shots of a bear ripping the head off a cute little pug dog - I mean, can you imagine the shots I'd have gotten?

But alas - damn it if my stupid, annoying sense of morality didn't kick in. DAMN IT!

So I called out to the people who put their dogs back on the leash and hurried out of the meadow. Meanwhile, the big old bear darted off into the woods at the sound of the big bad scary human's voice (that would be 'moi').

Harumph! You know? Between the Evening Grosbeak photo eff-up and missing a chance to take the BEST bear eating dogs photos EVER, it was very nearly a crappy weekend.

Blow-up of the brown Black Bear
[Management: And if you believe Ms. Miller had a sorry time of it, you are as gullable as she is.]