“I don’t want to leave and go home”, said one of the trip participants after a wonderful, interesting SBBG trip to Figueroa Mountain. It is not an uncommon feeling after each trip to the mountain — which I have visited a few times this year.

(Tufted Poppies, Sky Lupine - March 18, 2008)

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The Saturday trip to Santa Barbara Island was my second trip to that remote small rock of an island in the Channel. On the last trip (July 2007) I took my bulky bird lens — this time I wish I had not left it behind because of the extremely rich fauna. Santa Barbara Island is further from the mainland than the other islands, and seems to be affected by the weather more than the other islands. Rainy weather seems to be worse on this island. Thus flower viewing is only possible in the calmer months. Because of less than normal March rain this year and the usual higher winds further out to sea, the flowers dried out faster and there was not much to see. Hence it must be difficult to schedule a visit ahead of time to get the best of both the weather and the moisture.

(Baby Brown Pelicans - April 12, 2008)

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This year, as in 2002, I am taking my vacation in small chunks, usually a day at a time, visiting some of the magnificent areas in Santa Barbara county. In 2007 and 2006, I took short trips to San Francisco, camping along the way at some wonderful places - plus one or two day trips. The remaining years in-between were generally vacation-free, or spent on home repair.

(Anacapa chain of islands - March 31, 2008)

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This weekend I was able to get out on both Saturday and Sunday - no work requirements interfered. Unfortunately, my trip to Happy Canyon Road was not too fruitful because of a very strong wind.

A little beyond the shooting range, on a small promontory facing south-ish, there were many shooting stars and chocolate lilies. They were somewhat on the dry side because of the exposure to both sun and wind. I did not even try shooting the waving shooting stars, and got one semi-reasonable chocolate lily against the sky, where the skylight turned the chocolate color dark red.

(California Poppy - March 8, 2008)

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I spent a few hours Sunday afternoon on Refugio Road, where a number of early spring flowers were seen and photographed. Amongst them, Bigpod Ceanothus, which I was able to identify now with the alternate rule - in fact it seems like the branches are alternate as well. In the photo below, the clusters of flowers are arranged alternately on the stem.

(Bigpod Ceanothus - March 2, 2008)

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