Not much hiking, but

This morning wasn't very cloudy at all, so I decided to get out and see about doing a little hiking and photo-ing.  Well, I ended up not doing much of either, but it was a nice drive up the length of Stevens Canyon Road. My! but things have changed since my high school days!

Today I was shooting with my short lens, so the photos I took of a couple of birds were NOT publishable in any way, shape, or form.  But they were good enough for me to identify a pair of Hooded Mergansers on Stevens Creek Reservoir. Wow!  There was also a small flock of cormorants, tho' I couldn't make out the species... probably Double-Crested.  There was also a Red-Tail Hawk being severely harassed and chastised by a pair of crows on the far side of the lake.

There wasn't much blooming up there, but I found an area of Grand Hounds-Tongue blooming near a picnic area where I was hiking.

Also known as Cynoglossum grande, "the book" says that this isn't supposed to be blooming until May, but this has, for the most part, been quite the warm winter. Hmmmm... Allow me to rephrase that. The weather and temperatures this winter have been all over the map! But they have, for the most part, been leaning toward warm.

Here's a better view of the flowers of the Grand Hounds-Tongue.  After I snapped the photos, not knowing what these were called, I was driving toward home thinking, "I'll bet that guy's name start with or includes 'cyno'-something." Well. There it is.  :-)