Up at 5:30… mostly because it was already warm in the house and I don’t sleep well when it’s hot.  I decided if I was going to get any exercise today, I’d better head out fast before it got too warm outside to do anything, and I was shocked to find that it was already 71º outside!  And it was humid.  What’s up with that? It got up to 101º today…

CLICK HERE for the album of today’s photos.

I headed over to the WPA Rock Garden and William Land Park, because it was a short distance away and I hadn’t been there in a while.  There were still flowers in bloom there – including the giant artichoke thistles which I think are so pretty – and the walk was shaded for the most part.  I came across one young Anna’s Hummingbird that I think was either just testing out her wings or was totally last, I’m not sure which.  She would hop-fly to a branch near flowers, have a drink of nectar, hop-fly to another branch, have a drink of nectar, hop-fly to a leaf cluster, have a drink of nectar.  I saw her fly out a few times, but didn’t see her hover to get a drink at the flowers for any length of time.  Maybe it was too warm for her already, too, and she didn’t want to exert herself…  Her sitting in the branches, though, made it easy for me to get some photos and a video snippet of her…

There were some Canada Geese by the middle pond with goslings that were still in their yellow fuzz; and I found a mama Mallard with three fuzzy babies.  They had all just come out of the water and were cleaning off their feathers/down.  Then the babies tried climbing under mom. Even though they were still in their fuzz, they were really too big already to fit under her neatly, so their little heads and butts poked out from all around her.  Hah!  I’ll post photos next week…

Because of the humidity and the fact that the air was heating up fast, I only walked for about 2 hours and then headed back to the house.