Nature

Pig Fish

This is why we yell at people who drive Hummers. They are the pig fish in the mixed tank who will cause us all to perish.

Deer Trails

Summer has yellowed the grass and the deer have flattened it along the courses they love to run.

Baby Bird

Oh little fellow. The world waits to eat you.

Deer in Sleepy Hollow

Bob told me "You have to stop and look."

Lion in Wait?

It was about ten to twenty yards south of the Sleepy Hollow entrance that I saw faint tracks in the dust on the left side of the road.

Growling

A low growl burbled behind me.

Deaf to the World

An older Persian man grinned at me from a nose worthy of Darius the Great. He pulled out his earphones when he saw my lips moving in greeting.

I Will Not Surrender My Joy

In my head I shall keep these images as the reason for my struggle.

Whiting Ranch Wilderness 24

Chaparral Hiking Tips

Those paths leading off the main roads and up steep slopes aren't "Indian trails". The Indians weren't so stupid as to make their life difficult. Those are Stupid American trails.

Swarm and Splendor

The weird wildlife encounter of the day was a swarm of bees which covered an area the width of a basketball in the middle of the road.

Signs and Solitude

Like Maria of alembic, I discount these sightings as signs.

Santiago Trail 2

Volcan Mountain 5

Whiting Ranch Wilderness 21 and 22

Whiting Ranch Wilderness 20

Whiting Ranch Wilderness 19

Teaching Fear

It was only seven inches long from nose to tail, one of this spring's first kits.

Whiting Ranch Wilderness 18

A Garter Snake

When I heard a continuous hiss without the tiny foot steps and without the heavy-bodied pushing of the grass, I looked immediately....

The Sun and The Moon

Did men seize on the Sun out of Womb Envy?

The Swarm 2

The Bee Man came just before five. He'd cleared out seven hives before he came to ours.

A Swarm

Nature's come to our condominium. An Africanized honey bee queen found a crack beneath our Spanish tile eaves and set up court.

Holy Jim Canyon 6

War of the Sugar Bush

We thought it was injured.

Cussed Snake at Holy Jim

"Did you get a picture of it?" Lynn asked.

Palomar Observatory 3

Feeding the Birds

I'm part of the property now and it's my task to feed.

Crows

Crows have taken over a tall pine tree a short block away.

Duel

A red-tail hawk attempted to settle down atop one of the long-leafs. Two crows swirled about him, pecking.

Sleepy Hollow, Whiting Ranch Wilderness

I am an atheist when it comes to the existence of the lower pond.

Felis Concolor at Whiting Wilderness 4

On Tuesday, I went for a walk along the Sage Scrub Trail. There, preserved in the hardened mud along that mountain biker-eroded canyon, I saw a series of about ten tracks.

Homo Sapiens at Whiting Ranch

The only sound I heard was the wind tumbling off the mountain, hustling through the chaparral, and rushing through the arroyos and the gleaming industrial park at the mouth of the canyon to make a date with the ocean.

Winter Closure Continues at Whiting Ranch

Yellow police tape and red signs remain looped around the area following this month's earlier mountain lion attack. I suspect that bikers are ignoring the signs.

My Mountain Lion

Was this my lion, the lion that I frightened off last October?

Felis concolor at Whiting Ranch Wilderness 3

We can and will learn from this. My sincere condolences to the family of the victim, to the woman who was mauled, and the two survivors of the incidents.

Felis Concolor at Whiting Ranch Wilderness 2

Think of it: a biker never stops to look. He is always on the move, always -- in the eyes of the lion -- fleeing. It's like dragging a piece of red yarn in front of your cat. It's going to induce it to pounce.

Whiting Ranch Wilderness 15

Whiting Ranch Wilderness 14

Whiting Ranch Wilderness 13

Two People Framing an Excursion

Fifty steps down into Whiting Wilderness, I saw a tiny monogamous or perhaps unmarried California Mouse crossing the trail.

Whiting Ranch Wilderness 10

Hooray for Hollywood

One of the signs of late autumn in Southern California is the eruption of the red berries of the Toyon bush, also known as the Christmas Berry or Hollywood. This is the plant that gave the subdivision its name.

Bighorn Sheep

I have never seen a bighorn in the wild. Together with a sighting of pronghorn antelope, it remains an elusive thrill for me.

Sycamores

Sycamores or alisos as they are known in Spanish are a favorite shade tree in my neighborhood and they grow wild in the creek bottoms.

Sleepy Hollow

I took a walk today through the underlight of Sleepy Hollow, a dusky green vale that begins a seasonal run of water to the sea in Whiting Wilderness.

Solar Cloud

I remember looking at the sun through the fumaroles earlier this week while I was out walking in Whiting and seeing a couple of definite spots on the surface.

Utah Travel Diary 9

I have no quarrel with cows other than their habit of manufacturing fuel for fires in a most unappetizing display of foot-wide olive galaxies.

Utah Travel Diary 8

The cottonwoods undulate outside....the blue light from without. How wonderful it would be if it flowed and had substance. How great it would be if you could have Crater Lake in a cup.

A Hawk and Smoke

The only creature I saw other than tiny lizards at Whiting on my walk yesterday was a lone red-tailed hawk.

Formica

The scarlet toyon or "hollywood" berries had begun to show themselves along the fringes of Sleepy Hollow and I had stopped to look at them when I realized that my ankle stung slightly.

Deer, Puma Tracks, and Dead Rabbits

I came upon a park ranger who was deciding what to do with a dead rabbit. It had clearly been killed and chewed.

Moody Mountain Lions and Coyotes

I told my neighbors about seeing the mountain lion the other evening.

Cryptobiotic Crust

It's an unnerving feeling to realize that if you blunder off the trail in a desert park or just about anywhere, one footstep can destroy a population rivalling Manhattan.

Felis concolor at Whiting Ranch Wilderness

A sound like breaking tinsel as the body burst out of the grass along the road's edge. A face: white cheeks, black nose and eyes, tan fringes.

Utah Travel Diary 3

An elderly hiker examines a boulder. Another fellow says "Very nice, actually. Very nice." He tries to circle the pond by way of the talus.

Thanks
maximilian sunflowers I've had a great time as a guest blogger here. It's been a chance to do some...

Super Rats!

Will these super rats find a way into adjacent Central Asian Republics? Will they spread into Afghanistan and force Osama Bin Laden to flee, arm-in-arm, with the U.S. High Command?

Aliso & Wood Canyons 1

Upper Newport Bay 1

Autumn

And when autumn finally arrived, it looked little different from summer when you stood under the elderberries and gazed across the oak-glutted arroyos.

Usurper at the Feeder

The top hummingbird met his match today.

Birdbrained Evolution

Evolution leads to stupidity, purblindness, that endures just as long as it allows the individual organisms to breed.

Why Blog?

There seem to be two reasons people give for blogging: to change minds and to get laid.

Hummingbird on Patrol

When my cousin Anne was four, she used to call them "hunting birds".

Bat in Belfry

Lynn nearly walked into it, a three inch long fur blimp with eight inch wings.

Ridgeline

In the evenings, rabbits -- Western cottontails -- come out of the coyote brush and dine on the lawn.

Dana Point 3

Organ Pipe Cactus NM, 1990

I remember a night at Organ Pipe Cactus NM when I walked out to the edge of the campground, starchart in hand, partly to see what I could make out of the distant suns overhead, partly to leave Lynn resting in peace.

San Onofre 2

The East Coast of Crete

We went because there was a Minoan palace, one of the grand stone halls they built when they dreaded pirates who were hung like bulls splashing in from the sea and raping their bare-breasted queens.

San Onofre 1

Riley Wilderness 2

Riley Wilderness 1

Mockingbird Nest
I wandered into a blog where a conversation about a mockingbird nest was going on recently. I've lost the address....

Whiting Ranch Wilderness 7

Holy Jim Canyon 2

Holy Jim Canyon 1

O'Neill Regional Park 5

O'Neill Regional Park 4

O'Neill Regional Park 3

O'Neill Regional Park 2

O'Neill Regional Park 1

Crystal Cove 10

Insect Names

The lives of these insects is a matter beyond their names that deserves personal study

Ebb Tide

Smoky rocks turned ashen as the sun scraped the water off their granitic shellbacks.

Whiting Ranch Wilderness 6

Whiting Ranch Wilderness 4

Whiting Ranch Wilderness 2

Whiting Ranch Wilderness 1

Roadkill

Crickets clicked constantly wherever we went in the grassland. They went silent only if I stopped too near them or if that other sound -- the sound of the wheeled locusts who are death to the mice, the snakes, the lizards, and the gleaming oil black bombadier beetles who try to cross these roads.

LocalHikes.Com reporter

So far I have two hikes that I have covered.

Seal of Approval

Let's take up a collection to bring him here and drop him on I-5 during rush hour

Manroots and Cheeseweed

If we're going to write about California, we should know our native plant life. And the names -- the names alone -- should startle and excite the imagination.

Dreaded Hill

Dreaded Hill rises like a great panther paw between two canyons.

Whiting Ranch Wilderness 2003

"I've been telling him about 'the mountain lion'," he winked. "Tell him about the mountain lion."

Deep Down

The habitable part of our condominium ends its fall from the sky at a long seam separating its concrete foundation from the tarred over asphalt of our cul de sac.

Someone has to Speak for the Moles

Mary Beth did little grey gentlemen (and gentlewomen) the world over a disservice recently....

Chaparral Spring

The change from night's limited visions has refreshed me.

And Now for the Phasmatidae

As is usual in Science, the discovery upsets some currently held theories. Yes, they've changed their mind -- slightly -- again.

Armadillo 2

Governor Jeb Bush reportedly called his brother and told him to add the goddess of good karma to the Axis of Evil because she was flagrantly using chemical weapons.

Armadillo

California may be a more pleasant place filled with people who can count than in than Florida, but they have one up on us when it comes to wildlife.

Just Outside the Chaparral

Every mop dog who yearns to be a wolf joins in the agonized whining.

Modjeska Canyon

Crystal Cove 4

Crystal Cove 3

Crystal Cove 1

A Tidepool and A Feeding Frenzy

The fisherman laughed. "I've gone and upset the whole ecology," he said.

Penetration

Don't Tell John Ashcroft About This

I do wish trees wouldn't involve me in their sex lives.

White Buckwheat

I look outside at the sharp sandstone ridges and half domes and I feel like them -- half-clothed with "soft chaparral" like buckwheat that cracks when you pick a piece and explodes when you set a spark to it.