Favoritos de leef

Mitella pentandra (stamens opposite petals, maroon center) and Mitella breweri (stamens alternate to petals) growing side by side on a streambank southwest from Tamarack Mountain. High fire severity area (Creek Fire 2020).

This pic is total crap, but crossbills! They are real! In Tilden! I got great looks thanks to fellow birder with an epic Zeiss scope. This couple came up to us while we were scoping and Zeiss dude told them we were looking at crossbills. The guy in the couple started freaking out. "No way. No WAY. NO WAYY!!!" Zeiss dude thought the guy was having him on. "You don't actually care, do you," he said, crestfallen, to which the guy replied, "No no I really do! I'm a biologist! I was almost going to bring my binoculars today!" Totally hilarious. I thought the guy was joking too. Lesson: don't doubt a birder's birder cred just because he's not holding binos.

Didn't see the Green-tailed Towhee that's supposed to be up there too, but I did see numerous people looking for it.

Found growing in a mostly native setting (at least in the immediate vicinity) where chaparral ecotone meets Live Oak woodland. Among Diplacus aurantiacus, Toxicodendron, etc.
Forming a tall woody thicketlike shrub ~1.5 m tall.
Leaves >2 x long as wide (more like fishiae)
Sepals and buds not dark pink (more creamy pink, like var cornuta).
Upper sepals rounded obtuse (more like fishiae)
Arils hairy.
Possible escape from nearby botanical garden.

A female Giant Ichneumon wasp (Megarhyssa macrurus) oviposits into the side of a tree.

I was honored to have this observation selected as observation of the day for June 11, 2020, and again as observation of the week (week of June 21, 2020). It is covered in this blog post: A Trip to Texas Provides a Long Sought Photographic Opportunity - Observation of the Week, 6/21/20.

Moyenne Guinée, Guinea, Westafrica.
Apocynaceae?
Maybe a Strophantus sp. ?

At the roadside inmidst the ruderal forest mantle of semi-montane rain forest.

Help in determination is highly welcome!

Black-tailed deer killed by a bobcat. It took 13 days for the bobcat to consume the entire deer. I saw and photographed the bobcat on two occasions during that time. The blood is from the original kill, which happened on 12/4/2003. Other photos document the change in appearance of the carcass cache over the following 13 days.

Full story can be found on this page:
http://www.bear-tracker.com/bobcat.html

limestone monkeyflower, Erythranthe calcicola, California, White Mountains, Coldwater Canyon, Chalfant Valley - Owens Valley drainage, elevation 1646 m (5400 ft).

The last time I saw this annual species was when I found it in this same spot in the rainy spring of 1986, despite several intervening attempts. It was reported to be abundant in the Death Valley area during the 2017 season, and I will soon post some additional White Mountains locations that turned up for the first time the same year. Because it appears so rarely, it is probably more common than its 20 or so historical specimen records might suggest.

Nevertheless, limestone monkeyflower is a regional endemic, limited to the northern Mojave Desert and southwestern Great Basin Desert of southeast Mono and eastern Inyo counties in California, and Esmeralda, southern Nye, and western Clark counties in Nevada. As its name reflects, it seems to be found only on rocky soils and slopes with a strong carbonate component, which happen to be very common soils within its limited geographic range. The species has been found at elevations of 915-2165 meters (3000-7100 feet).

Limestone monkeyflower was recognized as a distinct species by Naomi Fraga in 2012, after having been confused with Erythranthe (=Mimulus) montioides since its earliest collections in 1937. Its closest relative actually appears to be Erythranthe rubella, from which it differs in having calyces broadly cylindric and straight while in flower (vs narrower and curved), largest flowers 5-9 mm across (vs 3-5 mm) with longitudinal maroon streaks (vs round or transverse spots), styles included (vs shortly exserted), and leaves with stalked glands (vs sessile glands) and broader on average.

Uploaded from my Flickr site: https://www.flickr.com/photos/127605180@N04/

I must thank Bob Patterson for this identification, via internet discussion of the photos years ago. I wouldn't trust myself to key this plant out accurately to species, but he is an authority on the Polemoniaceae.

Pretty clearly one of the species under 11', in this key:
http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/get_IJM.pl?key=11347

But I just realized it could be C. densiflora as well as C. exserta. And apparently they hybrize anyway, according to the note at bottom of the species description here:
http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=18200