Color, Color & Color with Red Flowers & Yellow Birds

Sometimes serendipity is the best way to see great things in nature. Driving into this fine County Park to drop off Jeanne to her Pastel Class, it was impossible to overlook these trees. With a marine layer (fog!) affecting the coastline (it was sunny only 1/2 mile away) the colors were also very saturated, rather than the reflected colors seen on a bright day.


The trees - Erythrina coralloides or Naked Coral Tree - were planted years ago to separate a parking lot from the street. And wow. What a good decision. As I was driving out of the park, slowly now through the parking lot, I realized that their was ANOTHER color in the red flowers - Hooded Orioles. In these photos, they are all mature males, dressed up in bright yellow/orange and their best black.

The Hooded Orioles feed on the nectar produced by the flowers. I did not observe long enough to learn if they might be a good pollinator, as this is known as a 'humming bird tree'.


You can now see more clearly (now that those distracting bits of yellow are not in the photo) how this erythrina obtained the 'naked' part of its common name - blooming with NO leaves!


In confirming my identification of the tree, I found an informative link on one of my most favorite 'plant links' - the UBC Botanical Garden in Vancouver, BC Canada. There is more information about the Hooded Oriole at the Cornell website for birds.

Jesusita Fire, Day 2 - Santa Barbara, CA

Damn. Here we go all over again. This is the THIRD MAJOR fire in less than a year and the FOURTH in less than two years: Zaca, Gap, Tea and now Jesusita. Starting on the Fourth of July 2007, the Zaca Fire burned completely in the 'back country' consuming only one small shed and hurting no one. It became the second-largest wildfire in recorded California history. The Gap Fire above Goleta started a year later and caused many evacuations, yet in burning more than 10,000 acres did not burn any structures. In early November, 2008, the Tea Fire in Montecito erupted suddenly with 90mph 'sundowner' winds and burned over 200 homes and severely burned two people trying to flee from their home.

This photo was taken only 20 seconds after the photo above. Note how FAST this fire was growing - especially the smaller plume on the right. These two photos were taken from the east of the fire, creating backlit smoke that became almost mahogany in color.

Forty minutes later at about 4:40pm, I took the above photos and the ones following - from the western side of the fire - near the Public Library in Goleta, actually from the house & overlook within the organic farm, "Fairview Gardens". At a distance of about eight miles, those flames must be more than 50' high.

This and the following photo were taken 20 seconds apart.... also showing how fast the fire was still burning.

As I write about 9pm, reports state that over 20 homes have burned, the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden has sustained damage, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History was threatened. Staff were busily placing the most valuable specimens in their fireproof vaults. Over 12,000 'reverse 9-1-1' calls had been made for mandatory evacuations, all the way to State Street, Santa Barbara's "Main Street".

Here at El Cap State Beach, about 20 miles west of the fire, the winds are still gusting, although not nearly as dangerous as those of the mid-late afternoon.

One of the very best local sources of news - especially breaking news is NOT the daily SB News Press (i.e. News Suppress), but the weekly 'Independent'

More photos with details on my Flickr site - you can connect to the Jesusita Fire set with this link.

SNOW BUNTING in SoCal???

Not much of a bird, from my first view of a SNOW BUNTING, eh? This oddly out-of-place bird would likely rather be in the northern plains or tundra, and instead?

She was behind the right-field fence of Mike Evans Field in Ross Field Park in San Diego, CA.

Apparently content with finding seeds in the outfield, the Snow Bunting was found on Saturday morning, and has caused quite a stir among Cali-birders - and non-birders. With this post, birders began showing up from around the region.

Subject: Female snow Bunting, San Diego
From: Stan Walens
Date: Sat, 2 May 2009 13:32:49 -0700

I'm out the door in 10 seconds.
A female snow bunting, i.d. confirmed by Paul Lehman, was found today
at Robb Field in San Diego.
This is near the San Diego River.
It is there now.

Stan Walens
SD

I was on my way to San Diego on work(!), preparing to stay with friends. On a short break at a rest stop south of Camp Pendleton on the Five, I connected on the web to see if anything was going on in the birding world of San Diego.... Yikes!

I found the park, after wandering around several interchanges - knowing all the time I where I wanted to be.... I just couldn't "get there from here", and ran into two birders who had just seen the Snow Bunting.
Aimed in the right direction, I was finally flagged down by yet another avid birder from Carlsbad, who finally pointed me in the right direction. In the above photos, our bird has hopped through the fence, and is seed-hunting in a dirt parking lot. NOT the activity usually associated with such a first-time bird for San Diego County.

Back on the right-field fence, the Snow Bunting has officially been tagged as the "500th" bird recorded in San Diego County - more than any other county's total in the ol' USofA. And hey, I was there!

It was seen on a ball-field, right? Here she is, rounding third, and I hope - headed for home!

[You HAD to see that one coming, didn't you!?!??!!]


MORE photos (how many Snow Bunting photos are enough?) on my Flickr Site.

Western Tanager & Chestnut-backed Chickadees at El Cap

While marine layer (read FOG!) can create some great views - here the Santa Ynez Mtns from the beach at El Capitan State Beach - the fog is not so fun for taking BIRD PHOTOS.

However, this morning's fog would prove to come and go. Here I was given a modest view of a Chestnut-backed Chickadee.

This is a bit clearer - the brown color is quite evident on the bird's back. While mostly known from north of Santa Barbara County (I have seen them every time I've been to Oso Flaco Park in southern San Luis Obispo Co.), this small colony has apparently become established at El Cap only in the past ten years or so.

The fog did it's work, allowing for good color saturation - if you can find the bird.... Like the chickadees, the Western Tanagers were feeding on small green caterpillers (worms) that in turn were feeding on the Western Sycamores - leaving them with holes akin to a lacey handkerchief.

Ahhh, yes the fog can be photographed!

See many more photos of this walkabout - with many other birds on my Flickr site.