chaparral princess

just a girl in the wirl

[chaparralprincess]

chabirlets of the ardeidae 🫶🫶🫶 my favorite bird family

🦩:

1. snowy egret

2-3. juvenile yellow-crowned night heron

4. yellow-crowned night heron

5. another snowy egret

6-7. great blue heron (big cranky)

8. yet another snowy egret

9. reddish egret! (my favorite) (it was very far away)

seen but not pictured: little blue heron (white morph), great egret, and black-crowned night heron

[chaparralprincess]

went for a hike around dusk last night and was greeted by so many beautiful blooming wildflowers🪻🪻🪻lupines are always my favorite, I saw a lot of Lupinus hirsutissimus (stinging lupine) and some Lupinus truncatus (Collared annual lupine). it was gorg 🥹 then as the sun went down, we heard at least three great horned owls, a western screech owl, and common poorwills calling all around. 🌚🌝🌚🌝

[chaparralprincess]

the loud static slowly clears in the telephone receiver.. on the other end, the stinging lupine is murmuring a quiet but persistent message, can you hear it?

[chaparralprincess]

splendid woodland gilia aka saltugilia splendens

i am more familiar with gilias and when i heard of this one i was like ¿why is it saltu? and then i read that the latin prefix saltu refers to a woodland or forest. so anyway i thought that was cute and now i love saltugilia.

[chaparralprincess]

forestpilled seep maxing this summer

IDs in order to the best of my ability:

1. erythranthe cardinalis (scarlet monkeyflower)

2. lupinus latifolius (broadleaf lupine) in seed

3. aquilegia formosa (scarlet columbine)

4. solidago velutina (ca goldenrod)

5. mix of scarlet monkeyflower, whitestem hedgenettle (Stachys albens), ca fuchsia (Epilobium canum), +

6. Epipactis gigantea (stream orchid)

7. wet mossy (order Hypnales-feather mosses) hole

8. Stachys albens with carpenter bee (Xylocopa sp.)

9. Erythranthe moschata (musk monkeyflower)

10. my bag surrounded by (jeffrey?) pine cones on the beach of a stream

[chaparralprincess]

went out looking for anything i could find yesterday because of the inat city nature challenge, and saw 4 different species of annual lupines :,)

1. Lupinus succulentus, arroyo lupine

2. Lupinus truncatus, annual collared lupine

3. Lupinus sparsiflorus, Coulter’s lupine

4. Lupinus bicolor, mini lupine (there was so much of it yesterday in the Verdugos - in some areas it made a ground cover!)

[chaparralprincess]

little lizard having their moment on a rock

i think it’s a western fence lizard ??? i don’t see any armpit blotches, so i’m ruling out side-blotched.

EDIT: inat says it’s a common side-blotched!! i literally know nothing!!!!

[chaparralprincess]

sacred datura beauty from last fall!!!!!!!

[chaparralprincess]

a little doodle of a spotted towhee and juglans californica from last week ✍🏼✍🏼✍🏼

[chaparralprincess]

left the chaparral and explored the tropics! here’s an assortment of butterflies from guatemala. i don’t have everything uploaded to iNat yet, but here are the ID’s i know

1. ?

2. ?

3. ?

4. Anna’s 88, Diaethria anna

5 & 6. Smicropus laeta

7. Pithy Sister, Adelpha pithys

8. White-crested Swallowtail, Mimoides thymbraeus

[chaparralprincess]

one year ago today i was wandering around a bog in the redwoods looking to meet the beautiful and charismatic aroid native to the western US (and the only one native to california… besides duckweed i think) - the western skunk cabbage 🦨🥬🦨🥬 there were so many and they were so beautiful! 💐💐💐💐

the black and white photos were shot on my medium format mamiya rb67 on 120mm film :o)

also happy twin peaks day 🌲🍒🏔️🏔️🦉☕️

[chaparralprincess]

i went hiking the other day and found a hillside covered in the biggest dudleyas i’ve ever seen (!!!) in the wild. i had to climbs through the dead branches of some Prunus to get to it and got sticks in my shoes but it was so worth it 😌

[chaparralprincess]

it finally rained in LA 🍄‍🟫🍄🍄‍🟫🍄🍄‍🟫 which means i found so many earthstars (Astraeus pteridis) on my walk into work yesterday morning 😌

[chaparralprincess]

drawing inspired by the california chaparral ✨✨✨

[chaparralprincess]

toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia) at night taken on my little digital camera

[chaparralprincess]

Erigonum parishii (Parish’s wild buckwheat), also known as mountainmist, looking absolutely like a dreamy little mist in the San Gabriel Mountains. the flowers are typically under a millimeter wide. so tiny!!!

[chaparralprincess]

on this hike i learned of what has become my favorite Ceanothus… Ceanothus cordulatus (mountain white thorn) a nitrogen-fixer and important plant for areas disturbed by forest fire.

the ones in this area were all glaucus, with the leaves, stems, and giant thorns the same beautiful minty blue-color. they looked kind of spooky, especially seeing them in big patches while hiking through patches of dead burnt trees.