South Bay Spring

Nearly a week ago, after getting my first ever flat on any of my bikes (and getting it fixed), I went for my oft-proposed ride up the Los Gatos Creek trail. I had been itching to ride up the creek for weeks and finally the planets were in the right places, etc etc and I could ride!

My goodness it was lovely!

I shall let you judge for yourselves. Click on any of the pics to go to the Flickr sizes page. :-)




(Redbuds - natives)


(the creek from a bridge - all green and growing!)


(A rather small egret in said creek)


(Another small egret further up the creek)


(common fiddleneck - native)


Something lives in this hole, a Californian Ground Squirrel I think but it dashed away before I could get a shot of it. It was being stalked by a presumably feral calico cat.


(Statice - weed)


(Canadians walking on water)


(Percolation ponds looking northish)


(Percolation ponds looking southish/Los Gatos-ish)


(Weedy but very very native - I love Californian poppies!)




(Lupinus succulentus - native)








(Male ?swamp? Baccharis - native)


(Female ?swamp? Baccharis - native)


(Some of the prettiest weeds you'll ever see but boy are they pests. I doubt if there is one native species in that shot.)




(Just below the Vasona Lake weir)


(lake outlet)

I am really enjoying this spring - it is quite exuberant :-)

Spring prettiness

I am a total sucker for these.



Crab apples?



No matter what they are, their daintiness, whiteness and pinkness pull me in like a moth to a flame.

Celebrating SJ's spring (part 1 of some)

Spring in San Jose is a looooong, drawn out affair. I've read that spring here really starts with the autumn rains. Sounds much like where I come from, assuming we get the autumn break (aka rains).

We arrived here in the depths of winter, such as they are in the Bay area. The hills around us occasionally were sprinkled with snow but the snow melted pretty quickly. We never had snow, though we did have a few really rainy spells.

In late Feb, the first real hints of spring began to show. The buds swelled on the trees and shrubs and a few early flowers bloomed.

Since then, it has been on for young and old.

I love poppies and there are plenty around here - mostly icelandic and the native Californian poppy.








The plums have come and gone, and some of them turned out to be flowering almonds or similar (different shaped leaves). Ahem. And I think I am a botanist (ok, a biologist).



Some I knew were flowering crab apples.


The wattles also have come and gone - Oz wattles have been naughty here it seems and have gone a bit wild.


The ranuncs (seen here at the front of our apartment buildings, now alas also gone, cruelly pulled out to be replaced by white petunias, magenta petunias and yellow marigolds - who thought up that colour-scheme?)


This magnolia out the front of a local Catholic school was totally amazing in full bloom, but my pic shows it about a week after its prime.

Even the local nursery was a good source of pics - a port wine magnolia


and a grevillea (oz native) - love those snail flowers!


There's plenty more spring pictures where these came from, so don't despair that for the moment, that's yer bloomin' lot!