K-Squared Ramblings » wildflowers

Return to Temporary Wetlands

Kelson — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 20:07:30 +0000

Early last month I posted some photos of ponds in an empty lot in the Irvine Spectrum area, fed by the winter rains. Well, the rains have been tapering off, and the weather has been warming up. It’s been at least two weeks since it last rained, and the ponds are drying out.

Drying Office Park Pond, originally uploaded by Kelson.

On the plus side, all the sun has brought out the wildflowers. It’s still nowhere near the 2006 level, when hillsides were covered with patches of dark green, light green and bright yellow…

…but there was a nice patch of lupins at one end of the lot.

Lupin Patch, originally uploaded by Kelson.

Butterfly

Kelson — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 05:40:00 +0000

Experimenting with the macro setting on my camera:

I cut across a vacant lot on my way to lunch last Friday. Most of it is just dirt and flattened stalks of of dry grass, but there are some plants that have sprung up since it was last mowed (probably sometime in spring) or have managed to hang on past then. (There’s a 2-foot-tall palm tree elsewhere on the lot.)

This was a cluster, maybe 3 feet long and 2 feet wide, of little white flowers about 1″–1½” wide. I put the camera as close to ground level as I could without setting it down, and aimed as best as I could from that angle. I took about a dozen photos, and lucked out: halfway through the shoot, a butterfly fluttered into the cluster.

Dry spell

Kelson — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 08:03:52 +0000

It’s been a dry year for California. Water districts all over the state are geared up for drought conditions. The hills in the Orange County area are still golden-brown in mid-April. Last year at this time, they had finally turned green for spring.

Here’s a shot from the Irvine Spectrum area from April 6, 2006:

That’s not a lawn behind that hedge, that’s a vacant lot. You can see it’s just as green as the strip of maintained grass along the sidewalk. Now here’s a picture taken about half a block away, taken last week, on April 6, 2007 (no, the timing was not intentional).

This year, only a few weeds and flowers have managed to take hold in the vacant lot. Meanwhile, the hills are their usual golden brown. Somehow, I don’t think we’re going to see much in the way of wildflowers this year. Here’s what they looked like last May, specifically May 5, 2006.

Instead, everything pretty much looks like these hills out in the Foothill Ranch area (IIRC this was called Borrego Park), taken last Wednesday:

You can see what a difference sprinklers make. Which brings me to this item: I walked to the Spectrum shopping center for lunch last Friday, and noticed that the parking lot across the street was bordered with these brilliant magenta flowers. I didn’t have the good camera with me, just my phone, but ~~I’ve tried to correct the colors as much as I could:~~ I went back on Monday and got a better picture.

Right after taking ~~this~~ the original photo, I looked down and noticed that the embankment was practically crawling with bees. I carefully backed away and continued on my walk.