Poppies are about finished blooming now, but we saw a large banana yucca in bloom, and near Spring Canyon, down the road a piece, we spotted some little hedgehog cactuses sporting their lovely fuschia blossoms. Soapberry trees were leafing out with spring chartreuse leaves. Lots of tiny flowers, many of which I had never seen before, caught our attention. It's a nice hike up to the spring, where we saw lovely little monkey flowers that only grow in wet areas. Some of the group hiked to the top of the ridge, but I was too busy down on my knees taking close-ups of some of the flowers.
Hummingbirds are hardy little souls, too.
They seem to be coming to town in droves now, in spite of intermittent wintry blasts. The gal at the gym who was the first to tell me of a hummer sighting back on March 24 told me she now has six feeders out because 30 or more hummingbirds were trying to feed out of her three feeders. This year, a pair of curved-bill thrashers are building a nest in the middle of it. Last year, a pair of towhees built in the same spot, but their nest was very sleek and looked like an engineering project. Some tiny bird has also built a tiny nest in the honeysuckle at the front of the deck.