The acorn woodpecker is one of three types of woodpeckers that live up in the San Bernardino mountains. According to the website called: Green Valley Lake Wildflower and Bird watching, They are named for their practice of ramming acorns into rows of holes they make in dead trees.

Their little red hats, white bibs and pointy black beaks distinguish them from the other two types of woodpeckers.

– woodpeckers only move upwards while hunting for bugs on a tree trunk; their tail feathers have evolved into stiff props to lean back on while they are climbing. They listen for bugs (including bark beetles) under the bark, then peck an opening, then use their long sticky tongue to pull the bug out. The tongue can extend five inches past the bill; it coils up in their skull around their right eye. Luckily for all the birds that use their nest holes, the Acorn Woodpeckers are especially good hole drillers. Sometimes they will even have two, one for breeding and one for brooding in the fall — like having a vacation home to get away from the kids. They are also “co-operative breeders” which means the young from the year before will stay and help raise the new brood –from same wild bird site.

From my comfortable perch in my electric lounge chair, I have taken pictures through the slider window and screen, bringing the birds up close with my zoom lens.Black headed Grosbeak – hailing from Mexico, these vacationers arrive in the spring and stay all summer. They are in the cardinal family and have thick parrot like beaks that help them crack acorns and pinecones.Steller’s Jay – Lake Arrowhead is brimming with ‘blue’ jays, hence the town Blue Jay near our cabin. Unlike the East coast Blue Jay, these fellows have mohawks or crests on the top of their heads.  They are in the squawking crow family and are intelligent as well as agile. They are like tight rope walkers and can hold an acorn with their feet, peck at it and using their bottom bill, which has a protruding edge, their beaks withstand the pounding and their balance is intact. Baby Jays have no feathers which is strange for a mountain bird and are completely helpless to the elements up here. The old saying, “naked as a jay bird” is a result of this fact.

When I was a youngster, I lived on a street called Thistle Lane. It was off 8th Avenue and jutted into a horseshoe shaped residential street full of families with tons of kids. It was a quaint neighborhood with people of all ilk. By Lake Gregory, I found some Bull Thistle or Cirsium vulgare. and it reminded me of that time when I lived on a road named Thistle.

Firecracker Penstemon.

My husband just recently discovered, within the last six months or so, an area of abandoned, preserved land where we like to take the dog on walks. This is the same area where abandoned and unused, cement drainage cylinders have been decoratively painted and I posted about before (see Y3-Day44-Open Eyes).

After extensive research which I love to do, I found out what the wildflowers I took pictures of are and want to share what I found out with you.

Above is a close up of Achillea Millefolium or common yarrow and sometimes called milfoil which means ‘one thousand leafed’ in Latin. Below was one of many unexpected fields of yarrow we encountered on our short but uphill hike.

Yarrow has edible leaves, raw in a salad or cooked. Both its fern like leaves and flowers make a nutritious tea. The flower heads are clusters of five petaled teeny white blossoms with pale yellow centered pompoms. They may be weedy but they attract bees.

Some of the first herbalists are native or ancient people. The Pawnee tribes used the stalks for pain relief, The Chippewa steamed the leaves as an inhalant to alleviate headaches and the Cherokee drank the tea to reduce fever and to help them have a good night’s rest at bedtime.

Below an unidentified wild plant/flower and even after two hours of searching cannot find it anywhere so maybe it is a new strain and I discovered it. Crazier things have happened.