Beauty and the beast?

  

Coastal Bluff Morning-glory (Calystegia purpurata ssp. saxicola) and Poison Oak (Toxicodendron diversilobum), 14 May 2026 

Sticky and sweet?

  

Nice lighting on these Sticky Sand-spurrey plants (Spergularia macrotheca) this afternoon...including the glandular hairs (hence the common name).

The sand-spurrey flowers were being visited by these wonderful bees.  I'm not sure which species of bee this is, but it was fun to watch them probing the nectaries near the bases of the filaments:

 

 

First steps?

  

Ah ha!  It was tucked low among the grasses, but I spotted my first Footsteps-of-spring (Sanicula arctopoides) starting to flower on 16 January 2024.    

Pipit and plantains

 

 

 

American Pipit (Anthus rubescens) showing some breeding colors — a nice blue-gray above and buffy below.

 

The pipit was foraging among clusters of Seaside Plantain (Plantago maritima) along the bluffs:

 

 

 

Now that's orange!

  

Not sure which lichen species this is, but it sure was dramatic in the gray overcast light this morning (2 April 2021).  Many thanks to Eric for capturing this orange beauty along the bluffs!

CORRIGENDUM and ADDENDUM (3 April 2021): I heard back from a few NHBH readers and learned that (1) this is *not* a lichen, but an alga (!) and (2) it's likely Trentepohlia aurea.  (3) After further reading, it's also possible that T. aurea is no longer the accepted name for this species and it should be called T. flava instead, but I'll defer to experts.  Thanks so much for the assistance!

Enjoying the storm

 

It always seems like the gulls enjoy a good storm.  You'll often see them riding the updrafts along the bluffs.  Photographed on Bodega Head on 7 December 2019.  (We've received ~1.2" of rain on Bodega Head during the past 48 hours. The rainfall total since October 1st is ~5.1", but ~3.6" of that has fallen during the past week.)

Not like the others

Walking by a dense patch of Sea Thrift (Armeria maritima) along a coastal bluff, from a distance one plant caught my eye:

 

There were hundreds of Sea Thrift plants, most with pale pink flower petals.  But one plant had much darker petals:

 

Not sure why this one plant was so different than all of the surrounding plants, but it was certainly eye-catching.