Pages Tagged “Nature”
Reviews
- The Birding Dictionary
★★★★★
Rosemary Mosco
A delightful collection of comedic ‘definitions’ of various terms one might encounter while watching birds (or interacting with people who do), filled with the style of humor and illustration the author brings to her comics. - Birding Is My Favorite Video Game
★★★★★
Rosemary Mosco
A fun collection of cartoons about nature (not just birds!) collected from Bird and Moon. Mostly funny, a few serious. - Entradero Park Loop
- Forrestal Reserve
- George F Canyon
- Hopkins Wilderness Park
- iNaturalist ★★★★★ A citizen science project for reporting and identifying wildlife observations, plus a phone app for use ‘in the field.’ Think of it as Pokémon Go for real animals and plants.
- Linden H. Chandler Preserve
- Madrona Marsh Preserve ★★★★★ One of my favorite places to walk in the South Bay, the preserve is the last remnant of seasonal marshes that once covered the western part of the LA basin.
- Malaga Canyon Reserve
- A Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching
★★★★★
Rosemary Mosco
A fast, funny, informative read about pigeons, their long history with humans, appearance and behavior, and even modern extreme pigeon breeds. - Point Vicente
- Prickly Pear Trail
- South Coast Botanic Garden ★★★★★ Big enough to feel like you could get lost (but not big enough to get lost), packed with trails that feel like walking through nature, surrounded by more structured gardens. Great for events, families or just getting out for a walk.
- Toulon Drive Loop
- Valmonte Trail and Frog Creek Loop
- White Point Nature Preserve
Blog Posts
- Plane Hopping and Foxtrot
When wild jackrabbits roamed the fields of LAX. (Los Angeles Times)* From time to time passengers in giant air liners are amused when giant jacks race the plane on take-off. Until now, none of the rabbits has left the ground. I’m reminded of all the rabbits we used to see near UCI in the 90s, […]
- Turtle! Duck!
Finally getting around to sorting through photos from a walk at the pond and botanical gardens at Polliwog Park…um…two months ago. The third duckling on the right was spooked by the turtle surfacing its head right next to it. Between this shot and the next, a few seconds later, it had darted away and hidden […]
- Do Not Taunt the Native Plants
Sign in front of some scraggly bushes: Endangered butterfly Habitat. Please do not bebother, bend, break, bulldose, collect, cross, crumple…
- More like “Sea ODDer”
This sea otter likes long swims along the coast, kelp forests…and stealing surfboards. (Story at LA Times)
- Prioritizing Trees vs Urban Heat
Combining data on current urban tree cover, heat, health, income, energy sources and more to determine where planting new trees would most help.
- Lizards on the Fence
~95% of lizards I’ve spotted since joining iNaturalist have been Western Fence Lizards. (Occasionally they’ve even been on fences.) Once I found one that was identified as a Great Basin Fence Lizard! When I looked it up, it turned out to be a subspecies of Western Fence Lizards.
- Entradero Basin: Spring and Fall
The flood control basin has been partly restored for stormwater infiltration and as habitat for native plants and migrating waterfowl, bounded by a city park on one side, baseball fields on the other, and hills all around. The city is currently expanding the basin while the water level is low.
- Wait, Bees are…Fish?
California’s endangered species law doesn’t cover insects. But the fish and game code is a bit broader than intended in its definition of fish.
- Microforests
Interesting read on building âmicroforestsâ: If you donât have enough room for actual rewilding, plant a small plot of multilevel native plants and trees in a park, school yard, or even your own back yard — especially in urban areas. Anywhere you can fit an oak (or equivalent), some shorter trees, some bushes and some […]
- Monarchs!
From this afternoon’s walk along the greenbelt: About as many monarch butterflies in one photo than I’ve seen in the last few years! There were a whole bunch of them clustered on a pine branch above the path. I wouldn’t have even seen them, but other people out walking had stopped to check them out. […]
- Hungry Hawk
Photos of a hawk that brought its breakfast of fresh pigeon to a tree, and the crows that tried to scare it off.
- Odd Geese
Grooming geese: Nature’s panorama fail. Seriously, though, I was determined to get some decent photos of these two geese because they are unusual. They’re clearly Canada Geese in terms of body shape and the pattern of markings. But every other goose of this type that I’ve seen has had white patches on the sides of […]
- Humming…birb?
An Anna’s hummingbird perched at local park. Most of the time they donât stay in one place long enough for me to even focus on them, never mind catch a photo. Even when they pause somewhere like this one, it’s usually just for a few moments before they fly off again. Of course, the reason […]
- Dance of the House Finches
Two house finches, a male and a female, trading spots on on a cable over the course of five photos.
- Flappy Bird (No, Not That One!)
I don’t often get good photos of hummingbirds, since they move so quickly. I wouldn’t call this a good shot, but it’s an interesting one!
- No Ducks Past the Yellow Tape!
While some cities around here have only closed playgrounds and sports facilities at their parks, Manhattan Beach has closed their parks outright. Polliwog Park has a large pond year-round that attracts ducks, geese, coots, herons and more, plus the local gulls and pigeons that wander by. But the park has been literally wrapped in caution […]
- The Shrinking Outdoors
Last weekend, a lot of people in the Los Angeles area tried to go hiking, or to the beach, or otherwise outdoors…to the same places. Which ended up creating the crowds that the shutdown was supposed to prevent, just in different places. 🤦♂️ So over the last few days, various cities, counties and the state […]
- Last Walk Along the Coast Before the Virus (No, Not That One)
Last weekend, before the flu hit me, I tried to de-stress by going somewhere for a photo-and-nature walk. I ended up at the actual Redondo Beach, south of the pier. Partly because there was nowhere to park near the pier due to the Kite Festival, which now that I think of it may have been […]
- Hawkspotting
I’ve been seeing hawks lately when I’m out walking, which is new. I know partly it’s that I’m actively looking for suburban wildlife, but I’ve been doing that since last June when I started participating in iNaturalist. I started noticing how many squirrels and sparrows and phoebes and finches were around (in addition to the […]
- Bluebird Valentine
I spotted a western bluebird on Valentine’s Day morning. Seems appropriate. (Spotted in a tree at a city park. As I was trying to aim my camera, it flew down and landed on top of a birdhouse nearby, making it easier to see.) Update: This was the last photo I posted to Instagram before I […]
- Winter Birds of Madrona Marsh
I went hiking at the marsh preserve this weekend and was astonished at just how many different types of birds I saw. Five species of ducks alone (it is winter, after all) — not just the more common mallards, but shovelers, teals, wigeons, and one I hadn’t heard of before called redheads (for obvious reasons). […]
- Today’s Bird: Black Phoebe
A Black Phoebe spotted on my walk to lunch a few days ago, near an office building. It perched there, maybe 10 feet away from me, and actually stayed put while I walked around looking for different angles. Then it flew up into a tree.
- Social Squirrel
I swear I’m not trying to turn this into a squirrel-themed blog, but here’s another encounter that I thought was worth sharing. Most of the squirrels I see are really skittish around people. This one, in a city park, walked up to me and posed. I’m not sure what it was doing in the first […]
- Squirrel Guard
I saw this squirrel running across the grass, then got my camera out and caught the first photo as it ran up the side of a tree and paused, looking at me as if assessing whether I was a threat or not. Then it ran the rest of the way up to look at a […]
- iNaturalist is like Pokemon Go for real animals
I’ve joked about how iNaturalist is like Pokemon Go for real animals. Well, since I started playing the game, I’ve been combining walks for both. And on yesterday’s hike in the local botanical gardens, I took some photos with a few Pokemon in their, um, natural habitats? (Still not sure why I found so many […]
- Damn You, Autofocus!
Gotta love it when the camera’s autofocus insists gives you this wonderfully clear image of…the grass in front of the skittish animal you’re trying to get a picture of before it scampers away. I did manage to get one shot of it before moving on, and then I was able to spot a clearer view […]
- Open Space. Good!
Final pieces of Irvine Ranch complete âopen-space puzzleâ in O.C. – LA Times This spot in eastern Orange is now part of a proposed 2,500-acre gift from the Irvine Co. to Orange County â 1,400 acres here and an additional 1,100 in Anaheim Hills. Well, good. I’ve lamented the loss of both open space and […]