Velvet Ant (Dasymutilla aureola), Henry Coe SP, Santa Clara Co., CA - May 2009. Thanks to Kevin Williams from Bug Guide for species ID.
Northern Checkerspot (Chlosyne palla), Henry Coe State Park, Santa Clara Co., CA - May 2009. Thanks to D. Ferguson for ID - I had initially misidentified this butterfly as a crescent...
The Natural Resources DataBase lists the common names for this flower as Oak Violet and Mountain Violet.
I shouldn't be adding IDs while falling asleep, apparently.
Pale winged variety. There were also Rose winged Grasshoppers flying nearby.
Scenery with giant Ponderosa Pines standing tall, with drooping branches, above Oak trees. They only grow along this high peaks and ridges in this park.
The unusually small Blue Oak leaves, in the photo with a hand, are on a lower branch of a tree with otherwise normal sized Blue Oak leaves. They look like they are from a different species of oak tree, but it is Blue Oak.
The two trunks photo shows a Manzanita and a Blue Oak trunk. There were several examples of these two trees growing very close to each other and two cases where they were married together like this.
Corral Trail in Chaparral near the Headquarters
feeding at Coyote Brush flowers
Small pond stocked with introduced fish species at a campsite in Henry Coe State Park.
Wrapped together: Manzanita and Blue Oak trees.
