Antelope Community Park, CA
4 p.m.
sunny, high clouds, light breeze, about 60 degrees
meadowlark singing, little bird chirps in nearby trees, jays or magpies chattering in distance - yellow billed magpie flew overhead - Dee screams "Eeww! Get it off!" It's an ant on her hand...
We're sitting on a fallen log near the base of a valley oak, I can see the scar of where it left the main trunk. Dee spots a little blue belly with a piece of his tail missing - I don't think he'll grow it back. (But what do I know?)
Woodpecker in the branches overhead - could see him better as we moved away - saw another fly overhead that flapped his wings in spurts, flew like a rocket Dee said. Shot photo of the tree & branches.
Walked around to Dee's "favorite tree." Chattering birds are magpies, magpie in a neighbor tree cha-cha-chas at us now. Can also hear and see a smallish flock of blackbirds who sometimes come down to bathe in a vernal pool.
ground level: many many fallen leaves from the now naked oak - also twigs and debris from human visitors - all with bits of grass poking through
eye level: low branches of the sheltering oak, budding out
overhead: more branches and the remains of what must have once been a rope swing
photo note: 665 negs can be stored only a short while in baggies... clear them when returning home! (I trashed the neg to the image I made this day.)
