@humphrey Hey Humphrey,

Fox Squirrel or Eastern Fox Squirrel, Sciurus niger. The genus pronunciation would be with a silent i and so scurus, as in scurry. They are introduced in southern California, and many other areas, and were maybe the abundant squirrel of much of the forested eastern U.S., until you get northward. The introductions around the country were largely due to the Cemetery business. In the back of any of their industry magazines up to at least the 1980's, they were advertised and widely sold, to make it more serene and peaceful for mourners. In many places they were non-native. Amazingly Cal Fish & Game was asleep at the switch on this one. They are horrible nest predators actively hunting and eating bird eggs and nestlings all breeding season. Many squirrels do that, including Gray Squirrel. They have taken over the entire L.A Basin.

sorry about the 'more than you wanted to know' part...

Is that a Japanese squirrel? In my neck of the woods the squirrels are either all black or all grey.

Hopefully your weather will improve.

@janis b Hi Janis,

Beautiful photo, guessing it reflects your mood after maybe too much rain? Great shapes and light as always. Love your compositions!

A lot of conifers have different male flowers, or like a cattail self pollenate as they grow. SP's photo may be of a male flower and not a cone per se, yet. But it does not appear a North American species, so I am stupid about whatever it is. Many of our coned types drop them, others stay on the tree and the seeds fall out of the cone as it opens. A fair number need a fire to get them to open and germinate. Like Eucs. Crossbills have a special bill to get the seeds out of the cones, and the 9 types of Red Crossbill found in the U.S., besides a couple generalists, each type is associated with a specific couple species of pines they can get at best. Lodgepole crossbills are different from Spruce crossbills, and so on, and each of the types can be distinguised by calls.

Thank you for the leftovers. The pinecone makes me wonder about its life process. What happens to the new needle growth coming from it? Do the individual parts/seeds(?) fall off and the new needles continue to grow? How come some pinecones fall whole while others hang on and produce new growth. Are pinecones either male or female? Maybe the answer is there in the older growth you can see underneath in the photo. What a mystery it all is.

Nothing but rain, all week long.

I think we in NZ have to cultivate a new relationship with rain, not that rain hasn’t always been a feature of the climate and culture here.

Thankfully, even with the generous amount we’ve had recently, my house and land have remained stable since the landslip 3 plus months ago.

Stay safe and well all and enjoy the weekend.