Photography: Plant macro shots.......

Bird of paradise stalk..........

Bird of paradise petals..........

Cactus spine....

Mikweed pod...........notice the pesky aphids attached to the pod....

Aloe bud....snake skin like scales...

Kale leaf....

Umbrella plant fruit capsule.....

A sage leaf....

Thorns of Pachypodium....

Season: El Nino 2015-2016 -related changes....

It's my 4th post on El Nino....the Ocean heating phenomenon that leads to large-scale global season and living kingdom beahavior patterns.......

Even a common person without much  knowledge of meteorology can observe and understand the patterns..........

The heavy rain rather arid South California, see here...

The frequent rain storms,  see here...

Appearances of unusual marine animals like tuna crab, yellow-bellied sea snakes, see here..

Also, coming across news of pods of whales dead by getting stranded in Amazon basin, in Indian peninsula....etc..

Atacama desert and Death Valley coming alive with wildflowers....

Sierra mountain getting high snow falls...

Yosemite Horsetail falls blazing like a cascade of hot lava...

Plants have been influenced...like the pears that burst into zillion blooms...

For more of these pear flowers visit here...

Photography: Golden hour shots........

Most photography enthusiasts know just before sunset, the golden hour casts a  pretty, tangerine, copper tint to pictures...some of my clicks from that magical moments...
Chaparral......

A magnolia..

Ash tree.....

Yet another magnolia..

The corridor of Mission San Diego..

Our Irvine neighborhood...

Pink Sand Dunes State Park..

Ocean beach..a happy dog...

Laguna beach...

We...

A huge tree in the neighborhood...

Photography: Aesthetic abstract....

Fluid, water-color-like abstract.......

Observation: The lone leaf.....

Information: Native Indian tribes of California.......

California can be classified into regions based on its geological and geographical parameters....the Shasta Cascade, Gold country, High Sierra, North Coast, Bay area, Central Coast, Central Valley, South California, Deserts.......So far, I have got the opportunity to savor most of it except Bay area and North Coast......
Any way, all these regions have been inhabited by Native Indian tribes....during my visit to the places, I learnt about them...

(Its a statue in Balboa Park..)
It was enlightening to know about  the historical and cultural heritage....like, different places inhabited by particular tribes..such as,
Yosemite National Park: Ahwahnechee
Anza Borrego Desert: Cahuilla
Channel Islands: Chumash
Sequoia National Park, Mono Lake: Mono...they used eat the fly pupae as protein source..

Using this woven basket...

And lived in these thatched huts..

Mojave Desert: Mohave
San Diego: Kumeyaay, Diegueño

Palomar Mountain: Luiseño
Santa Ana Mountains: Tongva
Most of the tribes have lost with time or have become part of modern society....but, the remnants of their lifestyle exists in some places....or preserved in museums.....