Birthday Cupcake

Ever since 1992 (or maybe it was '93) when I kept ruining Bradley's photos of Trajan's Column in Rome by poking my head into the frame at the last minute, he's been hellbent on revenge. Here, I was trying to capture the poetry of this solitary red velvet birthday cupcake (from Auntie Em's, my favorite), when BP dove in, almost breaking his ribs on the dining room chair. Later, I got the picture I wanted (sans hubs), but I ended up liking this one better. (Maybe he feels the same way about all those Trajan's Column pics with my little head in them, too?!)

Green Lynx Spider

I'm pretty sure this is an adult female Green Lynx spider, Peucetia viridans. She's humongous, with an abdomen the size of a grape, only shaped exactly like the buds on my Rose of Sharon, where she resides.
Green Lynx in North Carolina (Eastern variation): http://bugguide.net/node/view/10094.
Green Lynx in San Diego (Western variation): http://bugguide.net/node/view/33666.

Green Lynx Spider on my Rose of Sharon bush.

Green Lynx's abdomen = same shape/size as flower buds.

Green Lynx in her original position.

Before I noticed her, I was marveling at this strange web nearby. I don't know if it's the Green Lynx's or somebody else's. Weird, isn't it?

Web of the Green Lynx spider?

Nuttall's Woodpecker

Adult male Picoides nuttallii. "A small woodpecker confined primarily to the oak woodlands of California." — Cornell Lab of Ornithology: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Nuttalls_Woodpecker/id.
You can listen to the "Typical Voice" of Nuttall's Woodpecker there, too.


When this guy started pecking at the tree over my head where I was sitting in the back yard, I thought at first that he was an Acorn Woodpecker. We see them pretty often. The white markings on his back gave him away, though. Now that I look at the images online, the Acorn and Nuttall's don't look very much alike: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Acorn_Woodpecker/id.