Lizards and Spiders and Snakes! Oh My!

Today I went out on a hike and missed seeing the trifecta in my title by about 50 feet or so. I hiked the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park loop today, a little over 6 miles from my car back to my car. I decided today was a good day for a hike, since it's supposed to rain again later in the evening and on into tomorrow. We got rain on Wednesday, so the trail had dried out enough that footing wasn't an issue, but it was still damp in spots where you could make out deer tracks.

I think I got on the trail right around 9:30 or so. Being as it's sunny, but cool, it seemed like a perfect time for me to go hiking when most of the morning crowd have already left the park. Less people means there's a likelihood of seeing more animals out and about and I was able to spot all sorts of interesting things.

For one thing, there were still quite a few butterflies flitting about. I saw one tiger swallowtail and at least two different cabbage white butterflies. I saw several lizards running away from me along the trail or disappearing into the brush as the side of the trail. Lizards are interesting creatures in that they'll hold still for a very long time and then all of a sudden will make a mad dash. I think in reality if they were to hold still and just stay there, many people would miss them altogether. I, for one, have noticed many lizards only after they started moving away from me. They tend to blend in a little better into the dirt and stuff of the trail than do snakes, so I feel that they're not as easily spotted as are snakes.

The main attraction along the trail today however were the tarantulas. For the most part, this is about the only time of the year when you can really see tarantulas out and about. It's mating season and they're out prowling around for mates. This guy was about halfway across the trail/fire road when I encountered it. I took quite a few shots of it, but several of them came out blurry. I guess I'm still getting used to the camera on my new phone, but I got several good shots, this one being the best of the bunch. After taking this shot, I got back up and let the spider walk between my legs and continue to the other side of the trail.

Later on I encountered another tarantula walking along the side of the trail. I watched it for a little bit, even putting my shoe out in front of it to see if it would climb over my shoe. It touched my shoe with one foot and then decided to detour around it. Oh well, I tried. And I can already hear some of my friends and family thinking, "Geez Paul, why do you do some of the things you do?" Because I'm interested in things like that. Anyway, I left that tarantula alone, continued on my hike, but just around the corner, a maintenance truck was coming down the trail and so I became worried that it might run over the tarantula, so I walked back down and was relieved to see that it missed it by at least a foot or so.

I didn't see any snakes today, however as I noted above, it appears as if I missed seeing a rattlesnake by about fifty feet or so. I was on the downhill stretch of the trail, heading back to the car, but I still had about a mile and a half of walking to do when a guy came jogging up the hill. Instead of the normal wave or quick hi, he said, "There's a rattlesnake on trail." My response back to him was "Cool." He said it was about fifty feet further down the trail, so I walked down, but unfortunately (at least for me), I never spotted the snake, which means it had probably already slithered off into the brush along the side of the trail. No photo of a rattlesnake today, so you'll have to be satisfied with this photo of the gopher snake I spotted a couple of days ago along another part of the trail.

All in all, it was a good hike and workout today. I feel like I'm back to my old self once again and I even thought about hiking the loop a second time, but I knew that probably wouldn't be good for me since I could feel myself getting hungry. Another two hours on the trail without any kind of sustenance would not make a happy me. But the good thing was that my energy level seems to be back the way it was before all this health shenanigans started almost a year ago. The only thing that I have noticed is the my mileage times aren't quite there and I'm not sure they ever will be. I used to be able to do that loop averaging about 18 minute miles. Today, I averaged slightly over 20 minutes per mile, which I find acceptable. I'm getting older and it doesn't make sense to punish my body for the sake of fast miles. The whole purpose is to get some exercise and enjoy the scenery. I did both today.

Trail Encounters of a Different Kind

As most of you know, when I go out hiking, I like to encounter wildlife, especially the legless variety.  A couple of days ago, I had a different kind of encounter on the trail. Usually, when I'm hiking, if I hear a rustle in the bushes on either side of the trail, I can be fairly assured that it's a lizard of some kind. Lizards like to hold still until the last possible second, then take off when the danger becomes overwhelming to them. At that point, they aren't very stealthy and make a lot of noise as they travel over dead leaves and such. Snakes, on the other hand, are very stealthy and can travel over dead leaves without make a sound.

So when I heard something in the brush off to my left, I looked over and sure enough I spotted a lizard running across the trail on a trajectory that would take it right between my legs. About a millisecond later, a second sound and right behind it comes a snake in hot pursuit. So now I have a lizard and a snake heading right toward me.

Now, I can hear some of my friends right now exclaiming, "I would have been screaming." Yeah, well, I'm not proud to say that an expletive left my lips and I jumped just a little, mainly because I had been surprised by the snake coming out more than anything else, but once the snake saw me, it decided that lunch, in the form of that lizard, wasn't worth the human that now stood between it and its meal and so it turned tail and headed back to where it came.

I was not able to get a photo of it unfortunately, but I was able to ID as a two striped garter snake, very similar to the photo here.  They are very pretty snakes. I just wish the encounter had been a little bit longer as it was over in a matter of 10 seconds or so.

Spring has Sprung

It's the first week of the month and that means that it's time for P.J.'s monthly photo blog, this time with the theme Spring has Sprung. With all of the hiking I've been doing recently, it wasn't much of a stretch to come up with 5 photos that fit the theme for this month, so here we go.

1. Ladybug on a leaf

Last year at this time, I was taking photos of insects left and right. Butterflies and ladybugs were the main subjects last year. This year, I've been concentrating on the reptilian end of the animal kingdom (more on that later), but that hasn't stopped me from occasionally sneaking a shot of some insect that I end up crossing paths with. Insects are out and about finding mates, laying eggs and generally doing those life things that perpetuate their species, so this is a general photo indicating that spring definitely has sprung. I really liked the contrast of this one with all of the green and that single splash of red color in the middle.

2. Making more sunflowers

This particular trail leads up to Johnson's Pasture from Pomelo Ave. in Claremont. It's kind of tricky to find the actual access to this particular trail on the low side because there's a lot of no trespassing signs all around, but if people pay close attention, they'll notice that the no trespassing signs pertain to the horse ranch to the west. Even so, the trail itself it still kind of hidden and you kind of have to have inside knowledge about it.

In reality, I don't mind since that usually means there's less people on this particular trail, thus more wildlife to see, etc. I've encountered all kinds of birds, snakes and insects up there and there's a nice "grove" of wild sunflowers up there lining the trail. I can usually guarantee there are several honeybees pollinating the flowers and can usually get one or two decent shots of them creating more sunflowers for next year. This year's crop are starting to die out, but as you can see by the blur in the background of this shot, there's plenty of them up there for all to enjoy as long as everyone who goes through there practices the "Leave no Trace" hiking philosophy. Leave only footprints, take only pictures. I think we really need to keep that in mind as the population of bees dwindles over time due to insecticides doing what they do best to insect populations. It's not just sunflowers that we'll need in the future, but a lot of other plants depend upon bees.

3. Geocaching

I know, I know. I write about geocaching a lot. But it's something I enjoy and when an old teaching friend of mine said he was having problems with a particular cache, I jumped at the opportunity to go out and cache with him. I'd already found this cache, but it's always fun seeing people's eyes light up when they find a really well hidden cache, as this one was.

He, as most people do when they see me nowadays, commented on the length of my hair. In the past, my hair would get slightly longer in the springtime and usually after school got out, I'd go and get my summer cut. It was not really much of a difference back then, but you can tell it's still spring because I haven't gotten my hair cut yet. The key word there is yet. It's really starting to drive me crazy, but there are still a couple of people who haven't seen it in person yet, so I'm holding off until I see them and then I'm getting it cut. I'm fully vaccinated now and it's really time for the locks to go. Then we will know that summer has sprung, but in the meantime, my hair is still shaggy.

4. The snake whisperer

But Paul, that isn't a snake. Yeah, I know, but I don't have any still photos of snakes this month, just several videos, but lizards and snakes are in the same family and with the warmer weather, they are starting to be out in abundance, which means we all have to be careful while hiking or geocaching.

I've posted so many videos of snakes on Instagram and Facebook this season that several people have even considered not following me anymore, while other people have started calling me the Snake Whisperer and still others have suggested that I'm becoming one with the snakes. I'm not sure about any of those, but I might grab the handle of snake or reptile whisperer for a couple of reasons.

Once after a hike, I walked into the parking lot and there was a large lizard, similar to this one, sunning itself on a rock. I ended up sitting down on the rock right next to it, no more than 5 feet away or so. It didn't even flinch, like it knew that I was not going to harm it and I only wanted to get a close up shot for posterity. So it posed for me and then just sat there after the photo shoot was done.

The second instance happened earlier this week when I was taking the last shot in this series. I happened to look down the trail and there was another hiker just standing in the trail with camera out and I could see down on the ground in front of her, a two foot snake, although I wasn't sure what kind it was because I was too far away. So I hurried up to where she was, but the snake had already slithered away into the bushes. The other hiker confirmed that it was a Western Diamondback rattlesnake, which I assumed it was as I walked toward it because it had its tail up and I could see the rattles.

Anyway, I peered into the bushes on the side of the trail just in case I might be able to get a glimpse of the snake, but I couldn't see anything, so I turned to walk down the trail and continue my hike. Only after I walked away from the snake, did it rattle its rattle at me, as if to say, "Here I am." So I walked back over to where I'd heard the sound and spotted the snake curled up in the grasses by the side of the trail. It never rattled its tail again at me, even though I was closer to it when I finally saw it, as opposed to when I was walking away. Apparently, it knew that I meant it no harm and only wanted to see it. So yeah, I guess I'm the snake whisperer.

5. California Gold

Even though our last governor declared our drought over, we really haven't been out of a drought in California in possibly 20 years. We'll get one or two good rainy years, but then the next six or seven years are below normal. This year is no exception to that with the snow pack in the Sierra Nevada at 25% of normal. That's not a good thing as it means a dry summer and fall and more wildfires throughout that same time period. We've already had a couple of local wildfires in Southern California already in the spring, usually a time of greenness, but this season, we're already into our California Gold season where the grasses start to die off and we get this beautiful contrast between the dark green of the oaks and the brown of the hillside. All this really means is that spring, even though it's sprung, is quite short this year and we're quickly approaching summer time.

And there you have it, my interpretation of the theme for this month, Spring has Sprung. Comments, as always are greatly appreciated. Please stop by P.J.'s page and see how others interpreted the same theme.

Flowers are easy

This is going to ramble a little bit becasuse I'm starting to get cabin fever, as I'm sure most people are who are taking "Shelter in Place" seriously. During the past couple of weeks, I haven't been able to do my normal routine as my favorite hiking trail has been closed down for the duration of this problem, so I've resorted to walking along the streets in my neighborhood. The last couple of days I started taking photos of flowers that I saw since Spring has definitely sprung in our neck of the woods. There's a lot of pollen in the air and I'm definitely congested due to seasonal allergies.

But I digress. Most of the shots I've been taking recently have been with my iPhone. It has a good lens, but it's not nearly as good as my Canon 80D lenses, so today, I dusted off the Canon and took it out on my afternoon walk. It's the first time I've really used the camera since my trip to Idaho last summer. First thing I had to do was charge up the camera's battery, as it was deader than a doornail.

Now, several years ago I got myself involved in a 365 project. Challenge yourself to go out every day and take at least one photo per day and publish it online so others can see it and possibly critique it. I ended up starting on January 1st of that year and for the next two years, I diligently went about documenting every day of the year by taking photos. Some days were better than others, but I felt that it made me a better photographer and the one thing I learned was that flowers are easy. In other words, it's hard to screw up a flower photo. In fact, during my 365 project, someone challenged me again to not take a single photo of flowers for the entire month of March. Do you know how hard that is? Sometimes, you don't have the energy to go out and take photos and it's easy just to step outside, especially in March and take a quick photo of a flower and call it good for the day.

I did end up completing that particular challenge, but it was difficult. With that in the back of my mind, I decided that today, I wanted to concentrate on things other than flowers. I'd actually noticed that Painted Lady butterflies were starting their migration north from Mexico and were starting to show up in the neighborhood, so that was a great subject. Last year, Southern California had a huge migration of Painted Ladies due to the unusually wet winter we'd had and they proceeded northward in droves. I'm not sure how large this year's will be but last year, it was estimated that over a billion butterflies of that species alone migrated northward. That's a buttload of butterflies.

Because it is Spring, there are a lot of insects besides butterflies out and about. It's like a bountiful smorgasbord out there for insects. Which flower do I want to pollenate today? Today on my walk, I saw bumblebees, butterflies, honeybees, dragonflies, and lizards.

Another reason for getting my Canon out, was I really wanted to explore things that were a little bit farther away from the path and it's hard to capture those things with an iPhone camera. So I concentrated less on flowers, but on other things, and so you get photos like a lone pine cone that's probably dropped all of its seeds but is still hanging on a branch surrounded by pine cone flowers awaiting pollination so they will eventually create new pine cones.

The lizard photo. I ended up stalking this little guy, probably no longer than 3 inches or so. I think he was actually kind of pissed, because I'd seen a painted lady flit by and land on the rock right were he was, then it darted off and I did see the lizard had lunged at the butterfly. So I guess this guy was pouting because he missed his mid afternoon snack. But it worked for me, because I got a nice portrait of a lizard.

Needless to say, I won't stop taking photos of flowers, but as I noted above, flowers are easy and if you concentrate only on the flowers, you're going to miss a lot of subtle beauty all around you. So I'm going to be walking around over the next couple of weeks, practicing my social distancing, but at the same time, exploring my world through my camera lens once again. I'm looking forward to it and I hope you will enjoy it with me. It's where I can wander at the moment.