Built in 1929, the guard house of the historic Adamson House sits just inside the entrance gate. I’d love to have a peek inside, but it’s not open to the public; it’s the private residence of a State Park ranger. Is it full of spectacular tiles, like the main house, I wonder?
The playground at the Santa Monica Pier features a large concrete sea serpent head, and a small boat. I was just about finished this sketch when a couple of kids came to play, brandishing toy swords and loudly declaiming in a language I didn’t understand. Perfect pirates. So fun to witness.
I met up with Urban Sketchers Los Angeles at Santa Monica Pier yesterday; it was much easier to sketch the seated sketchers than the tourists walking by!
On Sulphur Mountain I saw a curious phenomenon—clusters of baby acorns on one of the coast live oaks. This makes no sense to me, for multiple reasons:
I know we’ve had a weird weather year, but I only observed this phenomenon in a single tree out of many hundreds I passed. Why would only one tree be affected, if weather was the cause? What’s going on here?
Our nature journaling trip to Santa Cruz Island was cancelled by the transportation company due to strong winds. Instead, we climbed the Sulphur Mountain Road Trail and journaled frogs, jumping spiders, mutant acorns, wood rat nests, and more. I saw my first northern harrier! What a lovely day with kindred spirits.
Prepping lunch for my Santa Cruz Island trip with the Channel Island Nature Journalers. First time I’m going there, and I’m excited!
Found this chewed fungus in the middle of a track at the Park; left by whom, I wonder? I think it’s an earth ball, Scleroderma verrucosum, but I am no mycologist.
I spent a quiet half hour with the hummingbird sage under a toyon tree, enjoying the colours, the coolness, and the calls of oak titmouse, red-shouldered hawk, white-breasted nuthatch, and acorn woodpecker. Time under trees is an essential component of my mental and physical health—is it for you?
Roof angles are tricky!
I sat in the garden and sketched in the four cardinal directions. Not pictured: the Anna’s hummingbird on the bougainvillea.
I live on USA’s west coast, but the coastline actually runs east-west here, so the ocean is to the south of us. It was interesting how the sky colour was so different in each direction (this was done mid-afternoon.)
In the top image, those are not two electric poles. The one to the left is a raptor pole that K built. It gets good use by owls!
hashiworks 