
These photos are from two weeks ago. The flowers are long gone.

Sorry to the rest of the Northern Hemisphere--you may still have snow! But in Northern California it's spring for sure. Which is not to say it won't be cold and rainy tomorrow.

My dad is the real flower photographer in the family but the tulip tree in our front yard was sooo pretty this year I had to try.

So, I was reading a blog the other day about a woman who had never seen a squirrel in real life (it was Kirin Notebook, I think). That seemed hilarious to me as we have many types of squirrels where I live (mostly ground squirrels--none of the fluffy tail East Coast tree squirrels). Anyway, I guess she's Australian and saw the squirrel during a trip to England. Then I wondered if I had ever seen a kangaroo in real life. Maybe at the zoo. Certainly never in the wild. She probably has kangaroos as backyard pests.
It must be the zoology major in me but I do think/wonder about where critters live. Hedgehogs. We don't have those anywhere in the US (do we?). Are they somewhere other than the UK? Europe?
I had a long discussion with an English friend about badgers once and where they live. I believe we determined that they are in the US as well as UK but now I can't recall for sure.
For a class in college I had to learn to recognize all the (orders? classes?) of native mammals of California by their skulls. There's a skill that HAS NOT come in handy. I also had to learn to ear tag wild voles (and got bit by a wild vole). Also NOT USEFUL for my current career (I rarely encounter voles in need of identification ;).
You still following this train of thought?
ANYWAY I was thinking it would be fun to post photos of the plants and animals around my neck of the woods. The really boring see 'em every day sorts of plants and animals. If you live somewhere else and do the same, let me know. I'd love to check out your squirrels or kangaroos or hedgehogs or front yard trees. Then this fall maybe we can have an acorn swap. I read about that on a blog once too. Sounded cool to me.
Final (sad) animal factoid: On Wednesday I counted TWENTY dead pigeons (well, gray birds anyway) in about a 2 mile stretch of road. Why??? There aren't usually any dead birds on this road. Nor do I ever see any gray birds of that size alive. Is it possible a truck full of pigeons was in an accident? Bizarre.