Mary, are you saying that they make you mow the lawn on Mother's Day!? LOL Of course not. That would be cruel and unusual punishment. The Govenator finally declared a state of emergency for some counties south of here in Cali due to the rain. Luckily, most of the danger has been in agricultural areas and not residential...so far. I thought it was bad back in January... ...when this fisherman along the Sacramento River fell asleep while on sturgeon patrol. LOL Notice the toppled chair on the roof? That was probably from his wife high-tailing it out of there, like normal people tend to do. (BTW, no one was harmed in the taking of this picture.) Sorry to all of your allergy sufferers, though! :( Brenda

Glad you found out what it was - the spots fooled me because every hermit thrush I've seen has been much more heavily spotted. Maybe local variations come into play here, or perhaps a young bird ??? FTM, your photos are wonderful. I feel like I can reach out and touch your bloodroots. The second to last one with the fern(???) coming up out of the dried leaves is a great shot. I did notice your bloodroots seem to have double blooms compared to mine. I can't believe your hepatica has already bloomed, I hope I didn't miss mine blooming. I actually used the Roundup concentrate on the cut ends of the honeysuckle and that didn't do it, and didn't help much at the local park which is what they did too. I've thought about cutting it down to a manageable size and spraying the leaves with roundup and then covering it with black plastic bags (which is what I had to do to get rid of some english ivy) but it will be tough to get very far that way considering how much I have. I have been digging some of it and then planting a bush in it's place but it's not feasible to do that with much of it. I am also hesitant to do too much until fall considering how many birds nest in the thickets. Too bad the emerald ash borer doesn't like honeysuckle instead ... big SIGH. That weed wrench looks like a handy tool though, and if it doesn't disrupt the ground as much as digging the bushes up than it might help in preventing new seedlings. I had a major explosion of gold finches this weekend. I stopped counting at 100 - they were fighting over the feeders so bad I did some serious ground feeding. And I think every one of them was singing and chirping, it was incredibly loud. And alot like the peepers, they would all suddenly stop and then one would start, and another and then all of sudden they would all be at it again. Very cheerful on a cold spring day. Also had 5 purple finches, all females and perhaps a young male just starting to show some color. And had a dozen chipping sparrows and three field sparrows, they make the fox and white-throateds look like giants! I was really hoping that I would get Number 100 this weekend with the cold weather but I guess I will have to keep watching.

Nice staghorn, Nancy! Mine has not been doing well after many attacks by squirrels, but I hope it will come back. Here is mine in the upper left corner:This is a new dendrobium (I think) that we got at Trader Joe's. These stay outside all year, but I bring them inside in the evening when blooming. Hibiscus in the front yard in autumn colors. Cymbidium in the back yard with autumn colors. My yellow one is about to bloom, but it usually does not start until late November or early December. It stays in the back yard, as it is too large to move.Pitaya (dragon fruit) getting ripe. I'm only getting three this year :(. Epidendrums blooming in the back yard. These flowers last a long time, but they also have to stay outside - the plant is too tall. Epiphyllum blooming in October plus November. It also blooms in April-May, but many only bloom once a year. Bromeliads in the pergola. Some of these bloom more than others, and some will only bloom every other year, but the flowers generally last for several months.More bromeliads. We moved the one in the center from the side of the yard to the pergola, as the leaves were getting too much sun. This plant has produced so many pups that I don't know where to put them all. I do not have any fire photos, but I could see a tiny bit of brown smoke from where I am. I'm about 12 minutes from Venice, which is where Nancy lives, but we have not met. I lived in Venice on Abbot Kinney Blvd before we moved to Westchester, where we could afford a much larger house. Our house in Venice was only 900 sq.ft. We've had endless news coverage of the fires, especially the ones in Ventura County and Griffith Park.

25 species separated by general location: 9 species (includes some water birds) at local city park with approx. 2 acre lake, 11 species viewed in backyard at feeder or pecking around in the fallen leaves, 1 species (American White Pelican) at large in-town lake, 1 species (American Crow) noted at numerous places around town, and 3 species seen while driving local road (Red-tailed hawk as well as both species of local vultures. I just make a little notation in the small notebook I carry almost everywhere and then add the proper name when I get back to my desk at home. Other than a very few winter visitors on the list (4), the birds I've seen so far are all local year round residents. Even that four may be year round but just don't inhabit the areas I frequent. At certain times of year, I also tend to visit local habitats where I can do a quick drive by just to check on some species that I may have seen there before. Have a different very large acreage "park" close by but am no longer able to walk the distances to get down into that park where the really "good" birds hang out, mainly the woodpeckers, flickers and seasonal waterfowl that are be harder to see/find in town. Being on the edge of town and more or less surrounded on several sides by what is basically wooded areas and pasture land also helps. Although I've always had a bird feeder of some type, I really didn't get interested in naming them until my photography habit got almost embarrassing due the amount of gear that I had accumulated but wasn't really using to it's best advantage. Also after retiring several years ago, the process gave me something else to look forward to instead of just taking more images of even more bugs and flower parts.