Pacific Coast Iris hybrids 2010, 2020

Hybrid Pacific Coast Iris, growing among hardy geraniums

Picture from May 16, 2010.

I'm mourning that I haven't seen any of these beautiful small irises around the house this year; there used to be several of them. And a particular loss, the beautiful white one with lavender and blue lines, that Cyndi gave me decades ago, from a Native Plant Society sale, is all gone. An idiot tenant had dug all of it's offspring out years ago, but there was one survivor - finally choked out by blackberries and neglect. The beautiful ground cover hardy geranium visible in this photo is almost gone too. It's shade tree had died, then they were dug out by the friend of a tenant, who thought he was weeding. They haven't recovered, not helped by being taken over by blackberries (mostly cut back now).

The tall purple iris just started blooming a few days ago, and the little white-with-blue-lines wild iris started blooming last week in the woods down the hill.

And the old-fashioned almost-wild roses down the hill by the highway just started blooming this week. They are always the earliest. And the lilacs. And I heard the first (Mountain?) chickadee song yesterday. 

May 1, 2020 There were lots of flowers on the tall dark red-violet iris in this area; last year's clearing was good for it. And the more sun from losing so many tall trees. There are still a few small plants of this beautiful small iris that should be in big clumps. And a few buds. One beautiful survivor is the small lavender-color ground cover Veronica Waterperry. The incomplete but careful hand clearing I did around and among it helped. Time to do it again this year, and really dig out the returning blackberries...

Lassie Came Home August 7, 2014

Lassie on balcony railing. You can see how she might fall off, with the birds going by at eye level.

 (written Aug 29, 2014) (first posted Sept 12, 2014)

She, as it turned out, fell off the balcony, apparently, rather than getting taken off by one of the (now 3!) Great Horned Owls from down the hill. There was some wind, a large branch fell nearby, a drawer that was leaning against the railing fell off, not right below where it was. So she might have made a frightened leap, and she and the drawer fell together.

But Lassie is one of my "kittens". They come running when I call (for food).* I had left them out on the low roof/balcony after dark for the first time, forgetting why I had been so careful to not do that. (The rabbit that I saw the owl killing, before sunset one year, was no smaller than these cats.) It rained some that night. (Yes, rain. August.) When I let them in, she didn't come.

So I called and called. And walked around the house looking, for 2 days. The second night after the evening when she vanished, I was on the balcony, calling. Well, having Siamese cat hysterics, really. Loudly.** And someone said something, somewhere nearby. I asked "who said that?" No one said it again. It didn't seem to be any cat I could see, inside or outside.

But it turns out that Lassie must have found her way up onto the roof right over my head. Because first thing in the morning she found her way in through the high window on the other side of the roof, into the kitchen.

Now, don't you think there is something in the idea of cat names as self-fulfilling disasters? Since it was Lassie , (not Rex or Spot or Grey Mouse) who went off and had an adventure? And came home.


*In fact, a great thundering horde of cat...

**Lisa taught me to speak Siamese long ago. We used to keep in touch that way, going for walks in the woods together. And twice, after she had been missing a long time, she found her way back after I went up on a high place and called, in Siamese cat,"Where are you?" Once we had just moved to a new city, and she had gotten lost. Once, down at the coast, she had been shot. (Hunting chipmunks in the neighbor's garden.) She had to have her shoulder pinned back together.

Siamese cat hysterics, you ask? Speak in Siamese. The same thing that the mama cat says to the kittens when she comes back in and lies down to feed them. Meowwrrrr. With a purr at the end. The same thing that the tomcat says outside the window when he is calling a female to come out and play. MEOWWRRR. Now, louder and deepen your voice. Again, louder and deeper. Stand up straight. Make a megaphone with your hands. Louder and deeper. Let how upset you are show in your voice. Tighten your diaphragm. Put an echoing crack into it at the end of the call. Bounce it off the neighbors house a block away, just to check. And of course, when you do this, all the not-missing cats will stand up and put their paws on your knees, to tell you that they are here. And if they are inside, they will be answering you.

PS Happy Kitten Day, September 7 (The kittens birthday)

The hummingbird and the hawk July 3, 2012 about 1:30pm

And while I was out there watching them, I saw lots of other life in the canopy in a way I had never noticed before...

Some of the things I saw were hummingbirds, rising straight up in the air, maybe 60 feet or more, then dropping straight down, and near the ground, swooping off to the side. Then again (or another one, maybe). Repeated several times. Friends said it was a mating display.

I've lived here over 30 years, and never saw that before.

In this photo, the hummingbird is nearing the top of its rise. It is about 30 feet from me (horizontally).

The tree is about 100 feet away. The large crotch is the location of the redtails' nest. The nest is over 100 feet off the ground, maybe 60 feet above eye-level on the balcony, with the slope of the hill. It's probably one of the redtail chicks in the branches, flying by that date, but still often in the home tree.

Hummingbird and Redtail hawk,  July 3, 2012

The relative sizes are very distorted by the different distances. They look close to each other, but are not.

I was not out on the balcony as much this year, and have not seen the hummingbirds' display.

July 23, 2013 The swallows have apparently left for the mountains already. I was on campus on the 18th, and noticed they weren't  there. I had hoped to catch them gathering, as I did once before, but I've missed it for this year. Maybe they left early because it's been so hot.

I don't know, because I missed it.

Redtail chick flying July 2, 2012

 young redtail photo July 2, 2012

After the redtail chicks had begun to fly, they were still nearby. And the parents would fly over to see if anyone was in home tree, to deliver a prey item. And often there would be a chick in hot pursuit of mama and lunch.

The v-shaped crotch of the tree showing at lower right of photo, was the nest site. It's about 30 feet down from the top of a Ponderosa pine tree. Somewhere over 100 feet off the ground. Only about 100 feet away and 60 feet up from my balcony, because of the slope of the hill.

I miss "my" redtails, which didn't come back this year. But they're around; I just saw one circling over the old nursery down the hill yesterday morning.

I'm trying to use this year to finish sorting last year's photos. At a thousand pics a day average, for a month, it's no surprise that's not done yet. I'm finding some unexpected images.

And while I was out there watching them, I saw lots of other life in the canopy in a way I had never noticed before...

The first sighting

First redtail at sunset May 22, 2012

 Suddenly, last year, 2012, on May 22, there were redtails sitting on top of the tall pine trees in front of the house. Two of them. These pictures were taken at about 7:30 the first evening, while the last light was on the treetops. They were both up there at the same time, though not in the same camera view.

Always before, when I heard them occasionally up on top of the trees, they had been on the ones right over the house, which I can't see the top of.

Second redtail at sunset May 22, 2012

The second one seems a little darker than the first.

The next day or so, as I walked down the hill, once there were 3 adult redtails circling, soaring, riding the thermal.

Between the 22nd and the 28th, I saw them several times sitting up there on the tall trees.

May 31, 2013 This year, although I've seen and heard them at the other end of the trail to campus, they don't seem to be coming back to here. I hope they didn't try to go to the neighbors' place, that once cut down trees in nesting season, and the redtails that were here then vanished. There weren't redtails nearby here for years. Just yesterday that neighbor started some new construction project.

I am going to miss seeing 'my' redtails, but maybe I can get last year's photos sorted at last.

Beat it Buster, your flashmob didn't show

Redtail Hawk Screams at Jay, June 2012

Last year at this time, there were redtails sitting on top of the tall pines in front of the house and down the hill a little, about a hundred feet away.

This is the top of an over 100 ft pine tree. They are sitting on this year's growth candles. The larger needles in the foreground are the mature size.

This scrub-jay has been buzzing the redtail hawk for some time, over and over, with rests between flights. This rest he is a little closer to the hawk than usual...

All the time he has been trying to call his mob. Nobody showed.

It’s hard to be a mob all by yourself.

Right in front of her eyes

And right in front of our eyes, this very large bird, rising from the pond with a medium size koi.

That peaceful-seeming pond, with the koi that come over to see if people will feed them - the great blue heron fishes there too.

 Heading home with the prey.


Couldn't resist: 

Placid koi approach
Looking for food. . . . from the sky
Osprey or heron. 

Looking for fish?

Pictures taken on April 26, 2011.

Where was this? Out in the woods somewhere, near a lake? No, right on campus, over the koi pond. After class last Tuesday, this large bird (osprey, I think) was circling over the campus hill for some time. Coming lower, rising again, sometimes backwinging to stay in the same place for a moment.

And then the dive, and a splash.

Well, it seemed like a long time, but by the times on the photos, the whole thing lasted barely 5 minutes.

12/28/2011 I made a fabric of these photos, with a clouds background. I still need to make a small change, but it should become available for sale soon. I will do another version soon; I've been taking sky pictures for years - should have a good one with scattered lovely clouds that I can use for an alternate background.
http://www.spoonflower.com/fabric/750650

Ice-fishing

That's a blue heron on that log out there, in the patches of floating ice. The rough-looking areas are ice too. I think the flat white patches may have finally floated loose from where they were stuck to the beaches, underwater, after the very cold middle-of-the-night low tides we have had for several days. The days have been in the 30s°F.

Picture taken 12/12/2009, 5:02 pm.

I am working on a memorial booklet about Mom, like she & I did for my sister, except that in the several years since my sister died, I have gone to school for three years to learn how to do this. Unfortunately, technical difficulties prevent my moving forward very quickly until more RAM arrives for her computer. Meanwhile I am getting an obituary out to the local newspapers.

You just have to keep moving

This picture was taken 12/10/2009, 4:13 pm.

You just have to keep moving to not freeze in place, like this little bird striding along the frozen shore.

Mom's computer guy was here this afternoon to help me get her computer able to use Photoshop & InDesign so I can do a booklet about her, like she & I & my brother did about my sister.

And he showed me that there is a street named after her!

Swimming in the sky

Picture taken 12/10/2009, 4:30 pm.

The light was amazing yesterday afternoon, with clear reflections of the colors in the sky on the glassy surface, and with spreading ripples made by little birds swimming through the sky reflections.

I arrived here

On October 25. Well, not on heron-back, although I did fly. I usually take the train, which I love. It's not that I don't like flying, which I do. It's the getting to the airport, and all the fuss there which I don't like.

This time, flying meant I could bring frozen Cornish pasties, which are a specialty of the old mining town I live in, where my mother was born. We enjoyed them for dinner that night. (Although I suspect Spinach-mushroom-cheese, my favorite, is not a traditional flavor... My mother was surprised by it. She said, "Who would guess spinach could be so good".) She sometimes made pasties when we were kids.

If I flew back, I could take yakisoba. The refrigerated kind, which are the only ones I know with the real seasoning packets, are not currently available where I live.

I got out for a walk for the first time today - but she came back early from her meeting; she collapsed after lunch and asked to be brought home. She doesn't remember it, but I don't think she's going out again.

The night the vultures dropped in

First, in the very late afternoon, lying out on the lawn chairs, Larry & I saw them way up high, circling. Many of them, maybe 18 or 2 dozen, so high & small we could barely see they were birds, and they were grey against the sky, not black. We guessed turkey vultures, because we couldn't think of what else would be in such a large group, soaring, circling in a "kettle".

Then, without my seeing their actual arrival, they were dropping into the large Ponderosa pines south of the house, slightly downhill. It was still just light enough to try to get a few photos that night. This one was taken the next morning, Sept 26, 2007. I waited a couple of hours and took the later bus to school, hoping to get a shot of them as they flew.

Instead, they sat in the trees in sunny spots, or flew to the large black oak to the east of the house and stretched their wings out in the sun. I could just hear them saying "Mornin' Joe. Cup of coffee?" as they woke up slowly.

Meanwhile, out from under the same pine trees came a flock of wild turkeys, a dozen or so, industriously scratching for their breakfasts. I can see why Benjamin Franklin admired them.

Even by the time I had to catch the bus to school at 9:30, they had not left, still waiting for their thermal. As the bus pulled out, I could see just the first few rising slowly.*

That afternoon when I got home from school, I went straight to the window, but unfortunately without the camera. There they were, 2 dozen of them, circling down just above the treetops, deciding if they were coming here again. A breathtaking sight.


*My Young Wilderness Professional book-club friend tells me that they migrate that way, by rising very high on a thermal, then gliding down to the next one. And I guess this south slope makes a good one.

I saw the owl killing a rabbit

Well, not quite. Coming up the hill towards the ditch, just before 8:00 pm, when it was still quite light, I heard the screaming. As I crossed the ditch, the screaming stopped, and as I turned into the trail, the owl flew up from just beside me. The terrified rabbit was still alive, twitching and trying to jump, but not able to get up and run away. All I could do was to go by as quickly as possible, so the owl could come back and kill it.

I've seen more wildlife here than I ever did at our cabin in Northern Idaho, at the north end of Priest Lake, where we spent all our summers, growing up. This was one I'd rather have missed. Now I know what probably happened to several of my cats, over the years.


*I've seen the owl several times at the turn in the trail. The neighbors say the owl we've heard on the hillside is a great horned owl. This was the first picture I've gotten, on Sept 17th, 2009, a few weeks after the day it killed the rabbit (Aug 24). If it's a great horned, it has its "horn" feathers lowered. But it's big enough to kill a jackrabbit.

Swallows' summer vacation

One hot summer day on the Nevada County campus of Sierra Community College, the swallows were all excited, collecting in a couple of trees, chattering noisily.  A gentleman who works on campus told me that they were collecting to go elsewhere for the rest of the long hot summer, after the babies were old enough.

One or two of them were flying back and forth into a hallway where there was a nest. Looked like she or they were checking to see that all the chicks were out of the nest. 

And it reminded me of when I was a kid, and Dad just had to get himself ready, and pack the car, for the annual trip to the lake, while Mom had to get herself and all the food, and 4 kids ready to go.

"Come on kids, aren't you ready to go yet? Dad has the car started already!"

This photo was taken on July 17, 2006.

I'd forgotten I did these raven sketches

I found them going through old class files, looking for duplicates to delete.

I think they'll make fun fabric designs.

There are three ravens who hang around in the parking lot at work. One of my co-workers feeds them. If they're flying overhead and he calls, they come down. They have him trained to call when he has food for them.

Birds

This charming little bird was taking a dustbath next to the bus-stop when I left work this evening. Then he returned to sit on this rock, and then joined his mate to hop around briefly on the ground. This is the first day that there have been any birds besides blackbirds and ravens in the parking lot. Yesterday one of the ravens was making that molasses-gurgling-out-of-a-jug noise - an unexpected sound coming from such a source.

Yesterday morning (Apr 2nd) I heard the first song of the mountain chickadee for this spring. It's a distinctive three-note call that I'm told is supposed to sound like "cheeseburger". For about 20 years I whistled ineptly back at the unknown bird who was making the call, hoping to get him to come closer. I could hear them coming closer towards me sometimes, but I never saw who made that call. (I even ran after someone whistling it, when I worked in the nursery. "What 's that bird?!" He didn't know. He had been taught it by a friend. They used it to keep in touch when out in the woods.)

Since I only heard it in spring & summer, I assumed the bird was a migrant. Then one of my book-club friends (young wilderness professionals, mostly) identified the bird as a mountain chickadee. She explained that they live in old-growth forests, where they can shelter in the deep cracks in the bark of the mature trees. They are not supposed to live at this low an elevation. (2500ft)

I had seen chickadees here, without knowing they were my mystery birds. My early attempts to begin to identify birds were discouraged when they seemed to look like pictures of the mountain chickadee, which could not be here...

They don't migrate, but overwinter. And of course they make their distinctive call only in spring & summer because it is a breeding-season territorial call. I should not have been disturbing the birds by whistlingly back at them all these years...

And what is it doing here? Well, there is a line of trees that was left as a property-line division when the whole county was logged off to feed the mines. Oaks and ponderosa pines. They were mature when my grandfather bought both parcels and built in 1917. They were the only mature trees when my mother was a child. Now there are others as large. And the chickadees might be a relict population since then, maybe?

Maybe someday I'll find out what this little bird is, or the one with the bright yellow breast, who was up in the tree.

The Turkeys Are Back

They were here again this afternoon: more than a dozen large feathered hunter-gatherers in my yard. I hadn't seen any for some time. Then last summer semester, while I was up late finishing a project for class, there was a giant rustling noise around the house for a long time, out in the dark. When I saw them twice in one day on the weekend, I was glad I hadn't tried to scare off the rustlers.

These are the wild turkeys that Ben Franklin praised. Look at those long legs for scratching. They seem quite clever and well-adapted, unlike the rumors about the overbred farmed ones. When they go away, though, I'm never sure if they've just left, or if the coyotes down the hill have gotten them.

My hunting cats are fascinated by them. I first noticed them, on my way out for an early morning walk, because the tabby was staring at them. And both times, after they left, there was Dovey the black cat, sitting where they had been. What do you suppose she thinks she would do with a turkey?

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore"

While I was walking down the hill from school last week or so, I heard a musical, liquid chuckling noise from behind and above me; the noise perhaps that is described as like molasses gurgling out of a jug. I looked back, and there was a raven sitting on the lamppost I had just walked under. It was a most unexpected noise from that source, though maybe I had read about it and forgotten. I tried to take a picture, though none came out well enough to use, but they did show clearly enough the shape of the bill and the curve of the throat feathers, so I could be sure it was a raven. And when it flew, the angle of the tail confirmed it.

I had learnt those details about ravens while researching to do these drawings of them for a class last spring. At that time, I had not seen any close by, but they've been in the yard since, sitting in the trees quite close to the window. Still no pictures — they fly away when I open the window to try. They're too smart for me.

When Cafepress brought out these new colorful tees, and I started putting my designs on them, the ravens came to mind. I had not originally put any ravens on kids tees, thinking "Who'd want to put pictures of ravens on their kids?" Then I thought about Poe's raven, who said "Nevermore", and it reminded me of a 2-year-old who has just discovered the power of saying "No".

(In an "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny' sort of cultural evolution, that seems to be similar to the power discovered by the medieval Arabic mathemeticians who discovered the concept of zero.)

And it seemed to me that having the raven to symbolize that eternal No might be funny. (My little niece is just two, so I am thinking about this.)


And then I thought about the holiday curmudgeon type of family member, who might appreciate a raven t-shirt as camouflage and defense against, and comment on, the seasonal festivities. These new dark tees are perfect for that, especially this green. The Fall-colored raven drawing looks almost cheerful on the new women's brown tee. Especially in comparison to the almost sinister look of the Spring-colored raven with the green leaves on the green tee.

And I'm still wondering, since I haven't ordered one to try it out, if the rather blue-black raven feathers would show in an interesting way against the black tee. Perhaps people who would like that would prefer that there not be any of those confounded colorful leaves to interrupt their black gloom. I might have to try a version of that.