Natural History Wanderings

Michael Frye had a recent post: In the Moment: A Landscape Photography Blog that included a current wildflower report for the Merced River Canyon.

there are still flowers in the Merced River Canyon west of Yosemite. About half the redbuds are still in good condition, but they’re leafing out rapidly, and won’t last long. As for poppies, the spots where they bloomed earliest, like the beginning of the Hite’s Cove Trail, have faded, but there are still a few good patches around, mainly at the eastern end of the canyon near El Portal. It’s likely that these will also fade within a week or so.

Other flowers will continue to bloom in the canyon for at least another month, but these late-season blossoms usually don’t form dense patches, and are better suited to closeups than to broader landscape images. I got into closeup mode for awhile yesterday, as you can see from this poppy photograph. It’s not often that I get into this mode, but flowers can offer a lot of creative opportunities, especially if you concentrate on the forms, shapes, and colors. This often means photographing a part of a flower, rather than trying to include the whole thing.

The next major bloom to look forward to is the dogwoods in Yosemite Valley. They typically start blooming around the end of April, but if we have warm and dry weather they could begin earlier than that. The deep-rooted dogwoods shouldn’t be affected by our dry winter, so let’s hope it’s a good year for them.

See his full post including photos: At the Risk of Repeating Myself « In the Moment: Michael Frye’s Landscape Photography Blog In the Moment: Michael Frye’s Landscape Photography Blog.