May 19th Moonset

Our new Nikkor 55-200mm digital zoom lens and tripod let me take this picture of the moon setting in the distance across the street. Click on the picture and you can even see the moon's craters! That's Venus below it - according to what I've read, this conjunction of Venus and the moon are most visible when the moon is waxing toward its new phase.

Birdbath

I'm just learning about birds. Is this a Wilson's warbler, a house sparrow, or what?What a joy to see this little guy come out of the avocado tree to bath and drink in our waterlily pond!(Remember to click on the photos to make them bigger; this was a pretty tiny bird and I was about twenty-five feet away.)
(You can see the rest of the pictures of this little bird on our photo album page.

One Last Look at Our 2007 Tulips

(Click on the pictures and you'll see the larger originals.)
April was definitely the height of the tulip season this year - much later than usual. Probably due to the drought since we only got four inches of rain and a couple of heat waves and freezes in January and February. Strange weather everywhere; let's hope it doesn't happen again next year. Here are a few more of our tulips, but for a better look at all of the tulips, take a look at our Kodak Gallery albums and some of my You Tube videos.

Snowy Plovers on South Ormond Beach

Tom and I hiked around the beach and got to see lots of birds on Saturday. We hoped to see snowy plovers again and got our wish - we even got to see a baby! (Click on the pictures below to enlarge them and you'll see it.)(Lucky for us the birds don't stay within the fences!) Click on the title of this post to see more pictures of what we saw. Besides the snowy plovers, we got to see other birds and even saw dolphins swimming by - we really do live in a fabulous area!

Late April Tulips

Burgandy Lace, to be exact. These bulbs were planted at the end of 1999 and have naturalized nicely - not the usual thing in SoCal! Take a look at the flowers and us over the years (with one exception, you can look at the bigger versions by clicking on them) . . .

2000, the first year:

2001, year 2:

2003, year 4:

2005, year 5
(Interesting to see that the group in the corner began to turn into Rembrandt-style tulips. Tom thinks I planted the varigated hybrids but I don't remember planting anything else in that spot.)
2006, year 6:

2007, Year 7. Last but not least, these were taken on April 26th of this year, at the end of Sam's visit:
(Will the group in the front be red again by 2008? Stay tuned!)