Bees of Spring

There’s a fairly bare, hard-packed stretch of dry soil that serves as a path up the hill in my yard, where I often see little brown bees zooming back and forth close to the ground. This year I finally slowed down enough to get some pictures. And I found a whole community of bees.

Feed your bees

A very nice article I read today confirms something I observed last year: native pollinators prefer native flowers. Since there’s so many different kinds, from bees to syrphid flies, you need many different flowers over the course of the seasons to feed them. You can find lists of suggested plants, but the easy way is […]

First day of spring

Whereas I saw a honeybee today, as it cruised along checking out the crocuses;

We have orchid function

Annnd, five days later, my first orchid of the year is fully open. So if I’m crazy enough to follow a recent suggestion and make my own timelapse video of a phalaenopsis orchid opening, I know how long it takes. Tempting. There’s four more buds in the spray, and the next one has started to […]

Sunflowers keep on giving

I come to praise my sunflowers, not to pull them up and compost them. When they were blooming, the sunflowers offered pollen to the bees. When they were dying, seeds to the goldfinches. The plants have finished dying and dried up, but they’re not done.

Alebrije

I’ve been suckered by the craziest thing. Have you ever been to an animal shelter and there’s that one cat (or dog) and you take one look and you know you’re in trouble. Well, I got that feeling when I saw Leroy. He’s an alebrije, a wood carving from Oaxaca. They’ve travelled from fever dreams […]

California goldenrod

While out in my old stomping ground, I also visited the Old Mission Dam. It was built in the early 19th century by the Indians and monks of Mission San Diego de Alcala to create a steady water supply from the San Diego river. Now it’s a quiet little park. There were ducks on the […]

Desert Broom

I’m back. I spent a few days in San Diego visiting family, traipsing about, and of course–bee hunting. Are you surprised? The first place I found bees was on this trail to Cowles Mountain. It’s not exactly Everest, but I grew up just down the hill from here, and the silhouette of that peak haunts […]

Still Buzzing

Things are getting ratty looking in the garden, but the heart-leaved aster is still hosting a buzzapalooza every day. I wish I could get some pictures that conveyed just how many bees are all over. There must be a dozen bees just on one plant. Plus an Eastern carpenter bee showed up the other day. […]

Not a bee, but an amazing simulacrum!

There’s a ton of native asters that are hard to distinguish, as I discovered after spending easily a confused hour pondering my wildflower book. I finally decided that it’s Heart-Leaved Aster overflowing in my back yard with huge plumes of pale lavender-to-white flowers feeding lots of happy bees. Except one of them is a syrphid […]