Carrizo Plain

 

Wildflower Mosaic

Just wanted to share some Panasonic FZ80 shots made last Tuesday (4/4/23) as we drove through Carrizo Plain National Monument on our way to San Diego to see the only live platypuses in the United States (and thereby scratch off one of my wife's longtime bucket-list items). 

We were surprised right off the bat by how full of water Soda Lake was. So many times I've seen it much more soda than lake (see 2013). This time it was too full for even a 180-degree panorama. 

I love fiddleneck as much as anyone, but I was a little perplexed by how much of the plain had been taken over by it. I'd never seen it before in such monocultural abundance. 

Although I only had time to use the point-and-shoot on this trip, I'm giving serious thought to heading back down there with my DSLR. Judging by the look of things we saw during our drive home today, there's plenty of time left to catch great color all over the place.

[UPDATE] If you click on the image below titled "Carrizo Plain and Temblor Range" to see it full-sized, you'll note a purple stripe in the distance. I believe that stripe is part of the huge purple splotch of color that NASA satellites captured on April 6.]

Along the Soda Lake Overlook Trail

View Over Soda Lake

Carrizo Plain and Temblor Range

Carrizo Plain and Caliente Range

South End of Soda Lake Road

Cloud and Paint Spill

View Toward Elkhorn Road From CA-166

Orange Poppies, Orange Jeep: The Grapevine This Morning

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Pt. Reyes in April, Pt. 2

 

Drake's Beach Sunrise

Iris Sunrise, Bluffs at Drake's Beach

One Elk

Two Elk

Three Elk

Five Elk

Wooly Sunflower

San Francisco Owl's Clover

Cotton-Batting Plant

Dead Cow Removal

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Pt. Reyes in April, Pt. 1

 

Elk in Velvet

Sea Rocket & Cattails, Abbotts Lagoon

Abbotts Lagoon

Sunrise With Iris Patch

Tracks #1

Tracks #2

Tree Swallow, Abbotts Lagoon

Pussy Ears at Abbotts Lagoon

Deer Among Wildflowers and Coastal Scrub

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April on Mt. Vision

 

Sunrise from Mt. Vision

Just a few shots from a dawn patrol to Pt. Reyes National Seashore where the moon was setting as I passed through Point Reyes Station on my way to catch sunrise at Mt. Vision (in early April 2015). 

The Old Western Saloon With Setting Moon

Point Reyes Station With Setting Moon

Iris Sunrise, Mt. Vision

Mt. Vision Dreamscape

Bishop Pines in Chaparral

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Merced River Canyon

 

Looking through file photos for good wildflower destinations to check out this spring, I found these shots of crazy swathes of California poppies I photographed in the Merced River Canyon in 2009. I doubt it's always like this, but I do wonder what it's like right now, either here or elsewhere, in the Sierra foothills.

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Mountain High

 

Above the Fray

There was a surprising amount of traffic as I biked up Mt. Tam yesterday. Maybe folks were on spring break or just looking for a mountain high. Or an ocean high. I think most of the cars continued down toward Stinson Beach.

I'd left home under a virtually cloudless sky at 9 a.m., but two big ice cream scoops of clouds had formed over both ends of Mt. Tam by the time I'd reached the northwest corner of the Presidio, and clouds were all over by the time I reached the mountain itself. The patch of calypso orchids was still going strong at Bootjack, but the sky lupines are still just leafing out. It might just be wishful thinking, but the critter action around my trail cams seems to be on a springtime upswing, and a bobcat was kind enough to pass by twice. 

The old Douglas fir whose sculpted top branches made it often mistaken for a Monterey pine has been considerably whittled down this year.

 

James Bond, looking for a mountain high, detours from his flight path to make this unusual pass parallel to the length of Mt. Tamalpais.

Band-Tailed Pigeon at the Top of a Doug Fir

I was surprised the pigeons didn't all fly away as I hiked past them.

Tam Cam Video Clips

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A Trio of Triptychs

 

Click to view larger.

On Monday I walked to the beach along Noriega Street and was struck by how different Ocean Beach looked since last Wednesday, so I snapped a photo. On my way back home I spotted some lovely California poppies at Noriega and Sunset, so I texted a photo to my wife. Up at 24th Avenue, as I was about to walk past the 76 service station, I noticed that someone had placed an apparently brand new syringe on a ledge of bark on this sidewalk tree, at about kid height. This is a couple of blocks from where an alleged drug house recently exploded. (I dropped the syringe in a trash can.) Anyway, I thought the juxtaposition of found objects would make a fun triptych of my Noriega Street walk.

Although I was glad to just hang out indoors all day yesterday and read a new library ebook (The Undertow, by Jeff Sharlet), I was determined to get out for a walk today, and I thought I'd try another triptych of my "other" walk, which goes down Noriega, then along Sunset and back via Irving and 16th Avenue. With the syringe triptych on my mind, I thought I would call it "Two Cities & a Gritty". But I ended up cheating a little by using only two shots from today's walk, plus a cat-shot I snapped on Sunday as my wife and I were walking to the 9th & Irving area to get some Easy Breezy frozen yogurt.

The coast looked clear when I checked the weather radar before heading out on my walk, but I still had to take cover beneath a garage door overhang to escape a downpour the radar missed. The radar looked good again when I got home, so I packed the FZ80 and headed out for a bike ride, ending up at the Cliff House where I was dazzled by the wildly tossing ocean and a line of incoming storm clouds. I had good cover and figured I wouldn't be trapped for very long, but I was wearing shorts and became a bit chilled by the time the rain let up. There was another even larger and darker mass of clouds on its way from the south not far behind it, so I high-tailed it out of there and got home just ahead of the drenching rain.

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