California Poppy Week

 

Last week was California Poppy Week (every year from May 13 to May 18 since 1996), and April 6 is California Poppy Day. The California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica) is the state flower of our beautiful state. Both California Poppy Day and California Poppy Week promote responsible bahaviour toward our natural resources and a spirit of protection toward them as well as emphasize the value and conservation of natural resources.

The first five photos in this post were taken in March 2019 during the superbloom. At that time we hadn't had a superbloom for years because of the ongoing drought, but the winter of 2018/2019 had gifted us with a good amount of rain. During spring break the Geek and I drove down to Southern California where we experienced the superbloom in Walker Canyon near Lake Elsinore. You can see more pictures and read about our day among the poppies here.

I still remember that day with a big smile on my face. À propos smile - if there is a wildflower that makes me smile it certainly is the California Poppy. It is such a happy flower, and seeing it turning the hills orange is like looking at a beautiful impressionist painting.

However, most years we don't have a superbloom, but the orange dots in the landscape are still lighting up the scenery. Years ago I took this picture in one of our regional parks - isn't it a beautiful sight?

In the wild, California Poppies have all kinds of yellow-orange shades. At the coast they tend to be more yellow with an orange center, while the "true" California Poppy (if you can even say that) features a warm brilliant orange. There are also differently colored California Poppies, however, they don't exist in the wild.

I like the pink ones and have a few of them in the garden.

This pale yellow one turned up in my garden one day and has reseeded every since.

Another favorite is the "Copper Pot".

The earliest I saw a California Poppy bloom was in February. Usually they are in full bloom March to May or June and then start to develop seeds. The seeds are tiny and the plants readily reseed. Once you have them, you usually have them forever. They look lovely shortly before the blooms completely mature to their beauty.

Don't they look like they're wearing hats?

When I started my garden here 13 years ago I put out a good number of seeds just to get it going (I was converting the lawn using the sheet mulching method and couldn't plant a lot in the first year except spreading some seed). Of course not all of the seeds made it to flowers, but many did and years later my front garden looked like this:

I eventually pulled many plants before the development of seeds and by now I have them in smaller drifts which I prefer. These days in May and June, the red poppies are taking over the front garden (pictures will follow in a later post).

I hope this beautiful flower made you smile! Finally, a photo I took when I was driving back from Davis after dropping off my daughter at college, and this one has become my favorite photo I ever took of them. I used this photo to make greeting cards and three of them I want to give to three of my readers. Please let me know in the comments if you'd like one, and if there are more than three people who want a card, I have to roll the dice to decide who will be the lucky ones. Yes, I will also send to Australia or Germany or Canada or...

Mother's Day Outing

 

Before we go back to the fascinating standing stones of Carnac, I want to share our little trip on Mother's Day. The Geek and I don't give presents to each other for birthdays etc., but instead opt for outings that we both enjoy. We used to go to Mendocino on Mother's Day, but this year I chose Gerstle Cove in Salt Point State Park instead. 

This is an extremely photo-heavy post.

This place is not unknown to you - I have written about it before (here and here) and I hope that you won't get bored reading about it again. It is certainly a place I don't get tired of. This was the first time that we experienced it in spring with all the coastal flowers in bloom.

When we had already reached the coast I decided that it would be better to get my big camera, so I trotted back to the parking lot to fetch my camera from the trunk of our car where I had stored it out of sight. On my way back to the coast I came upon this little guy - a Western fence lizard.

Fun fact about this lizard: if a tick infected with the Lyme disease bacteria bites a Western fence lizard, it is not able to further spread the disease to anybody else. I learned this from a local park ranger and it really surprised me (I had no idea about this). Here is what I found on the Internet (thanks to AI): "Western fence lizards play a significant role in reducing Lyme disease risk by acting as a host for ticks and possessing a protein in their blood that kills the Lyme disease bacteria within those ticks. This proteibn, discovered in 1998, effectively clears the infection from ticks that feed on them, preventing them from transmitting Lyme disease to humans and other animals." Pretty cool, huh?

I also noticed White-crowned Sparrows.

My husband, meanwhile, had made himself comfortable on the rocks and was taking a video upon my return. 

What was he filming?

After having watched the harbor seals for a while we walked along the trail which was lined with the beautiful yellow flowering Coastal Bush Lupine.

I was really taken with all the beautiful flowers. Such an abundance!

Clockwise from top left: Hare's Tail Grass, Creamcups, Coastal Bush Lupine, California Goldfields

Clockwise from top left: Varied Lupine, Douglas Iris, Dwarf Brodiaea, Johnnytuck

Clockwise from top left: Checkerbloom, Narrow-leaf Mule's Ear, Sea Thrift, Blue-eyed Grass

Of course there were California Poppies!

The slopes were golden with California Goldfields (such a fitting name) and California Poppies.

California Goldfields with Nuttall's Milk Vetch:

It was quite amazing how little some of these plants need, they were growing right out of the rocks.

Clockwise from left: Scarlet Pimpernel, Sea Thrift, Sea Plantain, Sea Thrift

And of course there was the incredible tafoni (the honey-comb like sandstone) which this location is known for.  These rocks always succeed to amaze and fascinate me.

There are so many of them! This is just a fraction of what we saw.

They are particularly picturesque with some Sea Thrift in front of them. You might have noticed that I'm posting quite a bit of Sea Thrift pictures here - I like them so much (and this is my favorite picture of that day).

The phone camera is excellent for getting into tight spaces and taking some fun photos.

The Geek and I definitely enjoyed this beautiful spot.

Of course there were birds! We saw a few gulls -

Seeing gulls always reminds me of my mom who used to say "Die Möwen sehen alle aus als ob sie Emma hießen" (The seagulls by their looks suggest that Emma is their name) which is actually directly quoted from a poem by German writer and poet Christian Morgenstern (1871-1914). But what excited me even more was the large number of Brown Pelicans that flew along the coast. They are so elegant and graceful.

 

White-crowned Sparrows were our constant companions. We could hear their cheerful song and see them on the rocks and in the bushes throughout the entire time we stayed there. What a delight!

We also saw Song Sparrows (at least I think that's what this little guy is - I hope that David will correct me if I'm wrong).

I puzzled about this shorebird. First I thought it might be an Oystercatcher, but "our" Oystercatchers are black. I consulted Seek and Merlin and both said Wandering Tattler. I admit I have never heard of this bird and again am waiting for David's judgement.

Back to the rocks - some of them were covered in lichen, and I'm not attempting to identify which lichen it is. These are only "might be"s.

Shrubby Sunburst Lichen (Polycauliona candelaria)

Protoparmeliopsis pinguis

Armored Sea-Fog Lichen (Niebla homalea)

I had run the lichens through the Seek app which was recommended to me by a park ranger. The app itself says that there is always the possibility that the results are not correct, so please take this with a grain of salt.

Something else was fascinating - sea salt left behind in the holes of the rocks. 

And did I mention that I love Sea Thrift?

Congratulations, you made it to the end! With all the faces in this post - human, animal, plant - I link to Nicole's Friday Face Off.

Enjoy your weekend!