Natural History Wanderings

Michael Frye has a new post on the Merced River Canyon Redbuds, Poppies and Hite Cover. Below are some excerpts.  See photos and full report at Redbuds and Poppies

• The redbuds have been coming along nicely in the Merced River Canyon, along Highway 140 west of Yosemite. I drove through the canyon on Monday, and most of the redbuds were blooming. Not all of those that were blooming were fully open yet, and some redbuds were still just budding. On the other hand, I saw a few that were starting to leaf out. Overall I’d say they were not quite at peak, but there were plenty of beautiful redbuds to photograph. They’ll probably peak around this weekend, or next week.
• Merced River Canyon Poppies: it still seemed that the poppies had faded a bit, and were getting crowded out by the thickening grasses.
• the first part of the Hite’s Cove Trail: only a few poppies, but a nice selection of other flowers like goldfields, baby blue eyes, tri-colored gilia, blue dicks, and a few shooting stars. And lots of newts.

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