A beautiful native plant, Hooker's Evening Primrose, is blooming rather late this year. Amy Ruegg found this plant near Shell Beach on The Sea Ranch.
The plant has formed seed capsules, which Pine Siskins love to feed on. Here's a photo of the entire plant Amy found, and a close up of the flower.
Thanks to Amy for allowing me to share her photos with you here.
Don Spear photographed the crescent Moon with Venus below, with a few clouds to add atmosphere.
Today we are having some much-needed rain.
Thanks to Don for allowing me to share his photo with you here.
Spiders are associated with Halloween so I thought I'd share a recent photo of a scary-looking Orb Weaver. Kathy Gustafson photographed this spider. She and I believe it is a Pumpkin Orb Weaver.
Even though it looks pretty scary, it's a good guy in the spider world. Harmless to humans, orb weavers build beautiful webs.
Rozann Grunig recently photographer spider webs, highlighted by morning dew. They may well have been built by orb weaver spiders.
Here's a photo of spider web jewels taken by Craig Tooley. It is in Craig's and my beautiful book, Mendonoma Sightings Throughout the Year.
Thanks to Kathy, Rozann, and Craig for allowing me to share their photos with you here. To see much more of Craig's beautiful nature photography, here is his website: www.ruffimage.com
Jason McKinney found this fellow in his tool bucket. I sent Jason's photo to Gary Nafis. Gary has a fabulous website called California Herps, a guide to California amphibians and reptiles - http://www.californiaherps.com/index.html Gary identified Jason's lizard as a male Northwestern Fence Lizard. Females do not have this much color.
Fence Lizards eat spiders and insects. Thanks to Jason for allowing me to share his photo with you here.
Gualala Point Regional Park has so many wonderful aspects to it. It's one of my favorite parks to walk with Rick and our golden retriever, Sunny, which is what we did today. With the King Tides, the ocean was roiled up and big breakers crashed against bluffs and the sandy beach.
Wendy Bailey walked there recently and she was taken by the autumn grasses, which she entitled amber waves of grain.
The Gualala River lagoon has filled up in recent days. At high tide the ocean is spilling over the sandbar that has the river closed. And we've had several small rain events. It's quite kayak-able right now and this weekend could be the perfect time to get in a trip on the river.
Thanks to Wendy for allowing me to share her photo with you here.