October and December 2023 wildflower hikes
Catching up.
Catching up.
Added a robber fly. Synolcus?
Only 4 900 to go - but the top 3 include penguins ... that's easy, Boulders beach is down the road.
(750 on 24 Sept 2023) For this plant person my last 3 are associated animals.
Playing catchup.
I wonder about the geology of that ridge of boulders @raylantalbot ?
I only realised today I can use my iNat calendar in map mode to see exactly where we walked. The rocks ridge out to sea, but the landward side is a barrier of loose boulders. Don't see that anywhere else that we walk.
https://www.inaturalist.org/calendar/dianastuder/2023/9/27
We have spent the last few days between 2 mountain fires. Spotter plane and helicopters in an aerial ballet with their water bombs.
Looking back at beach blobs for my contribution to GSB instead of smoke and ash.
https://eefalsebay.blogspot.com/2023/12/november-catch-up-great-southern-bioblitz.html
Plus the @mentions, and what trickled in during the last week.
I have caught up.
Now I can concentrate on IDing for GSB.
Then, when that dust has settled, I will upload my own pictures.
Yesterday's beach walk for GSB 23 has gained me a few more species for littoral. And a helpful comment for plough shell species
Heading for a digital detox in November.
If you are in the Southern hemisphere (we will need identifiers please?)
Great Southern Bioblitz 24 to 27 November
I will be back to help ID for GSB November into December. Cape Peninsula is my home. Western Cape has even more to offer. Africa needs identifiers!
https://eefalsebay.blogspot.com/2023/10/false-bay-garden-october-gsb-digital-detox.html
And today - when I didn't have a camera in hand - I saw
A very slender dragonfly. Wings neatly folded back along the body. Wings veined with dark 'spoons'
Then lifted a stone and disturbed a family of young cockroaches.
And saw pseudoscorpions!! Didn't realise they were quite so tiny.
Those pictures are in my head.
(not going to get to the September blog post till December)
A sand toadlet in the winter pools at Rondebosch Common
Hybrid Gladiolus planted at Silvermine, in olden days for horticultural eye candy, not today's more thoughtful locally indigenous.
On Elsie's Peak a lush RED Protea lepidocarpodendron - just lacking the dark pigment says Tony R. Makes a change from the anaemic blonde variants in other species.
Winter in the Cape. From grey wet days when we scuttled home early as soon as we had seen our target species. To those magnificent days with a sparkling sapphire sky when we could enjoy the views.
https://eefalsebay.blogspot.com/2023/09/July-hikes-blackburn-blackhill-silvermine-simonsberg.html
https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/dianastuder/79449-700-cape-peninsula-species
700 on 4 May.
Another 50 added.
Still a long list of same old same old Unobserved species to gather up.
I guess I have to count the pair of unwanted pet koi dumped in the Otter Pond at Kirstenbosch as number 750 ;~[[
Would rather count the pink and yellow Carpobrotus.
Or the little egret who posed for a photo op while fishing for his lunch in a tidal pool.
Or the Nemesia or Moraea which were both new to me species.