Early Wildflower Check

 

Sunrise at Serpentine Power Point, Mt. Tamalpais

I can't remember where I read the story where Gary Snyder mentions taking Hopi elder David Monongye to this serpentine outcrop on Mt. Tamalpais, but they all felt the power of this unique vista point on the mountain and dubbed it Serpentine Power Point. I see no other name for it on either Google Maps or my Mt. Tam trail maps. However, the name does appear on a map in Tamalpais Walking by Tom Killion and Gary Snyder.

Anyway, it's a beautiful spot to watch the sun bring life and warmth into a brand new day.

My plan for the day, an early-wildflower roundup, looked better in my imagination from home than it did when I actually got to the mountain. Very little was actually in bloom, at least up around Rock Spring. I still can't quite get over how different it looks in the woods up there after all the forest-thinning. My "magnum opus" of Mt. Tam nature photography, Revealing the Landscape: Mt. Tamalpais, feels like it came from a different era.

Journey to the Sun

Waning Crescent Moon

Tamalpais Sunrise

My first wildflower stop was within the serpentine outcrop. Only this yellow sanicle and maybe a half-dozen tiny goldfields were in bloom.

Here's an even less-developed one.

I checked my usual locations for shooting stars, but even these typical early bloomers were still being very shy.

The surprise of the morning was this naturalized orchid, Epipactis helleborine, which I've usually found in late summer where the fog-drip from redwoods gets them going.

I saw it along the Matt Davis Trail while looking for a different, native, orchid.

I found only two of these calypso orchids before I gave up and turned around to look elsewhere.

I wasn't going to photograph the Ceanothus on the way back to the car, but this sprig was growing on a fairly flat plane which made it relatively quick and easy to capture.

I was a little bit heartbroken when the quail finally raised its head, only to dart into the nearby brush (along with several of its fellows) as soon as it spotted me.

As I waited in vain for the quail to come back into the open, a scrub jay came down to see what I was up to. Being adjacent to a parking lot, I had to wonder if people have been feeding them.

The warrior's plume was just getting started near the Quarry Parking Lot east of Rock Spring.

I was surprised to find a grisette freshly sprouted just a few feet away from the warrior's plume.

Part of the reason I wanted to go up today was to photograph wildflowers with raindrops still on them. If it hasn't rained in a while, it can be handy to bring a small spray bottle filled with water.

I had finished looking for wildflowers and was heading back to my car when I stumbled on these guys -- by far the best calypso sprouting of the day.

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