Laguna Coast Wilderness Park

My first birding excursion for spring break really wasn't much of a birding trip at all. It was more of an all-around nature hike for three hours at Laguna Coast Wilderness Park - all the way up the canyon to the ridge-line (I think it's a part of the santa ana mountains but I may be wrong because I was looking out across Laguna and Aliso to Saddleback).

I need an ID on the flower and the insect, click for a closer view.

I love this shot of the red-tailed hawk against the hillside, click to see him.

I parked at the Nix Nature Center - which is very nice, and starting in the parking lot I heard wrentits and California towhees competing for the loudest and most numerous bird award. A close runner up were the California quail with their "chi-CA-go" calls from the bushes.

Bee on unidentified white flowers.

Yellow Violets

This really has been one of California's best wildflower years since I bought my camera - I was constantly switching back and forth between my 75-300 zoom lens for birds and some butterflies to my regular lens with macro adapter for flowers... and oh, the flowers! Everywhere I looked, yellow, white, many shades of purple, and blue. It was amazing. My pants are filthy from crawling on the ground to get a shot, or pressing through the bushes to get closer looks. 

Behr's Metalmark

The butterflies were also out with a vengeance, checkerspots, whites, sulfurs, orange-tips, ladies, duskywings, blues and more! I wish I was good enough to ID them to the species, but unless I shot a photo of them, which was hard since the buggers were patrolling so zealously they rarely paused to nectar and allow me a photo.
Dodder - a parasitic plant that takes nutrients and wate from it's host.

I made it all the way up to walk along the ridgeline where I got breath-taking views of Orange County and the hillsides which I had just hiked up. The plant diversity was thrilling, as were the butterflies and birds. I was looking down(!) on ravens and red-tails enjoying the thermals rising on this incredibly warm day - somewhere in the high 80's where I was. I was having such a blast up there that I didn't want to hike back, but images of my car being locked in when the gates closed for the night finally urged me to begin my trek back.

Gooseberry

The trailhead where I came out onto the ridgeline.

As I headed toward the car, I took my final shots, filling my memory card to the brim, which is hard for a photographer when you don't have a spare handy. I was torn between each new potential shot, and the horror of having to delete some shots before I had a chance to see them on a computer screen to judge whether or not they were worth saving. Guess it's time to invest in that second memory card so I don't have to make that choice...

Mariposa Lily maybe?

While on the ridge, I passed some cool rock formations, which I snapped a few shots of because I recognized the type of rock from geology, but couldn't bring the name into my mind. I'll probably add it in later when I figure it out. Within the limestone there was a bee hive - or is it nest when it's in the ground? All in all, this was one of my best hikes to date, I had a wonderful time, despite the heat, and saw a lot of new things through my lens, what a wonderful treat for spring break!

Miner's Lettuce, a water-loving species. Edible as I recall although as a general rule I never sample plants in the field, better safe than sorry!

Mallow species?

I want to say this is a monkeyflower for some strange reason.

White flower - perhaps a phacelia, there were dozens of purple phacelia there.

Owl's clover - a root parasite.

Whoops! Chipping-sparrow, guess I ought to pay more attention before I post ;)

Looks like some sort of pea species, ID needed!