On Saturday my husband and I took part in an event; we hiked in Bommer Canyon (Irvine) during its open access day. Once a month they open the otherwise gated trails for the public, and we can hike in the area without a docent.

We had the most perfect day for a hike; cloudy and not too hot either. We experienced some extraordinary views from different points of our hike. I will post scenery images tomorrow; today I wanted to show you wildflower pictures. We saw many kinds; some I recognized, others I still need to learn about. Here is a selection from the beautiful flowers:

Monkey Flowers
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Mark had the day off on Good Friday, and we decided to use our day together for a whale watching trip. We did one not too long ago, but it was cold and very windy that day. Friday was different; it was a very enjoyable day on the boat, and we got to see many sea animals. In addition to the brown pelicans and sea gulls, we also spotted a female Baleen Whale with her calf, we watched hundreds of Common Dolphins, and saw some resting sea lions. Basically, from the beginning of the trip till the end there was something to see.

Here is a collection of the pictures I took during the trip. Since I don’t own a long zoom lens that’s best for this kind of photography, I just used my 85mm lens – and later cropped the images.

 

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I didn’t want to miss a day from posting (I’m posting every day in April, in case you didn’t know it). But I haven’t had time to process my images from today. I won’t tell what we saw today at Newport Beach and in its vicinity, but we had a great day out at the ocean. So as a teaser, I just have a few images from the harbor.

I’ll make my “official” post tomorrow.

Tuesday night I attended a 3-mile hike at Orchard Hills, which is less than a 10 minute drive from my home. This hike is not open to the public unless you sign up for a volunteer docent led hike organized for certain times of the week. Orchard Hills is part of the over 50,000 acres Irvine Ranch Natural Landmarks.

What makes this hike special is that you actually walk around a working avocado orchard.

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