Category: California Wildflowers

Whatever Weds. Super-bloom: Purple

Posted in California Wildflowers, Macro Photography, National Monuments, Photography, Whatever WednesdayTagged , , , , , , , , , 31 Comments

Copyright ©2023 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.

Here and there throughout the Carrizo Plain were patches of purple flowers. The most prominent was the Great Valley Phacelia.

This particular genus is only found in California and Baja California. Per Plants.usda.gov site they can be found:

Phacelia ciliata is found only in California and Baja California in Mexico. Within California distribution includes the Northern
Coastal Ranges, the Sacramento Valley including Sutter Buttes, the San Joaquin Valley, the San Francisco Bay, the Southern
Coast Ranges and South West California, but excluding the Channel Islands. For current distribution, please consult the Plant
Profile page for this species on the PLANTS Web site.
Habitat: Great Valley phacelia is found associated with Coastal Sage Scrub, Northern Oak Woodland, Foothill Woodland
and Valley Grassland.
Adaptation
Great Valley phacelia is drought tolerant and grows well in areas given 7 to 18 inches of annual precipitation. It grows on a
range of soil types from clays to sandy loams to gravelly slopes and tolerates moderate salinity. It is found at elevations from
seal level up to 5,000 feet (Calflora, 1997; Walden et al. 2013).

They’re considered one of the “blue” flowers and they’re a pollinator.

Patches of Great Valley Phacelia
Close up of the Great Valley Phacelia
Wide view of Great Valley Phacelia and Orange Fiddlenecks

I got a wee bit behind with posts due to a trip down to SoCal to visit Big Baby Boy, and the Dark Haired Beauty. We crammed a lot into a few days, but I’m home now and catching up.

I’ll be sharing more from our wildflower Super-bloom trip in the future.

Nikon Df w| Nikkor 105mm and 35mm lenses| PS CC 24.4.1

more to come…

Whatever Weds. Super-bloom 23-Yellows

Posted in California Wildflowers, National Monuments, Photography, Whatever WednesdayTagged , , , , , , 42 Comments

Copyright ©2023 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION!

On Easter He-Man and I met our friend Gordon of https://undiscoverdimagesamongstus2.wordpress.com/

down in SoCal at the Carrizo Plain National Monument to photograph

the wildflowers in bloom…or Super-bloom 2023.

The Carrizo Plain has a lot of yellow flowers. Today we’ll focus on the Orange Fiddlenecks with an honorable mention of a few other yellow wildflowers.

Wide View of the Plain and mountains. Soda Lake.

Orange Fiddlenecks, Hillside Daisies, and Goldfields cover the distant mountains and the plain, and in the above image you can see front right a few Tidy Tips too.

Orange Fiddleneck
Orange Fiddlenecks

It was so beautiful and not too crowded being a holiday.

Next time I’ll share other views, and flowers that I saw while here.

Nikon D810 & Nikon Df w/ Nikkor 105mm macro lens & Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G| PS CC 24.3.0

more to come…

Whatever Weds. San Clemente Pier Plus 1 more…

Posted in California Wildflowers, Fuji X-T3, Photography, Travel Photography, Whatever WednesdayTagged , , , , , , 38 Comments

Copyright ©2021 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

He-Man and I have been traveling between our children’s homes in April which has been fun, and wonderful. Our latest trip we went to see our son in SoCal for several days. One evening we went down to the pier hoping for a good sunset. It wasn’t bad, but the company was perfect.

San Clemente Pier at Sunset

We dined out in restaurants and it was grand! Really. I missed dining out. We ate in places that we don’t have at home like Thai, Greek, and fresh Seafood. I was bad and didn’t take any images of the food at these places. Sorry!

We took after dinner hikes up in the canyon near Big Baby Boy’s and The Dark Haired Beauty’s place, and it was lovely. Spring wildflowers were in bloom.

Here’s a Sweet Pea of some sort- Sandy Beach or Chaparral? They are the largest flowers in the Pea family I’ve ever seen before.

I only took my Fuji X-T3 and my newest lens for it the Fujinon XF 16-80mm.

I’ve had the lens a couple of months now and really haven’t used it all that much, but this trip it got some love. I think it did a good job and its small, as well as light weight so it made a great travel kit.

There’s a nesting Red-tailed Hawk in a tree at the Golf Course where we live. I am hoping to get some good images of the chick and the parents bringing in food. So far I’ve not been lucky.

I hope you’re all having a good week so far. What’s new with you?

Fuji X-T3| Fuji 16-80mm| PS CC 22.3.0

more to come…

Whatever Weds. Spring!

Posted in California Wildflowers, Nikon, Northern California Wildflowers, Photography, Spring, Whatever WednesdayTagged , , , , , , , , , 61 Comments

Copyright ©2021 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

On our way to see Baby Girl, The Handsome Surveyor and the boys last week we saw a hillside covered in California Poppies, and I had to stop to make some images.

The hillside was steep, mostly on private property so I was unable to climb the hill to get a better composition. There were power lines going through the scene so after I uploaded the images I took to my digital darkroom aka- Photoshop CC to make some additional improvements in addition to my normal tweaks to white balance, whites, and blacks, and camera/lens corrections. I took out the power line using the spot healing brush, then I cropped the image to remove a big bush and some partially showing trees, and lastly I removed a tree top at the top of the image. So the image went from this…

To this…

For some reason the finished image looks a bit washed out here, but not in Photoshop. Hum?

Baby Girl asked for a print of the final image and I wanted one too so, I’m having it printed up. I hope it looks good when they arrive.

Which one do you prefer?

Nikon D810| Nikkor 24-120mm| PS CC 22.3.0

more to come…

Whatever Weds. Wild Iris and Mustangs

Posted in California Wildflowers, Photography, Whatever Wednesday, Wild MustangsTagged , , , , , , , 44 Comments

Copyright ©2019 Deborah M. Zajac.  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

In June when some friends and I went out to see the Wild Mustangs in the Eastern Sierras we found the fields pretty swampy.  We definitely needed our Wellies or Muck boots out there to keep our feet dry, but the Wild Iris loved the swampy environment.

Wild Iris and Mustangs

It’s mostly peaceful for humans and horses alike out here until…a Stallion gets upset about another stallion near a mare that’s his, or he wants her, or he just wants to be King of the Pasture then it can get exciting!

Wild Mustang Skirmish

They got wet!

The flirtatious Stallion was run off and all was peaceful again.

Wild Mustangs

I hope you all have a peaceful Wednesday and a great rest of the week!

Nikon D810| Nikkor 200-500mm| Lexar Digital Film| PS CC 2019

more to come…

Yellow: The color of sunshine and smiles

Posted in California Wildflowers, Nature, Nikon, Photography, Super Bloom, US National Parks, Wildflowers of Northern CaliforniaTagged , , , , , , , 21 Comments

Copyright ©2017 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

On the way down to Pismo Beach for our Anniversary week-end we took a side trip to Carrizo Plain National Monument where I had heard there was Spring Super Bloom happening. To give you a little sense of where the Carrizo Plain is located in California I’ve copied Wikipedia’s description for you. “The Carrizo Plain is a large enclosed grassland plain, approximately 50 miles long, and up to 15 miles across, in southeastern San Luis Obispo County California, about 100 miles northwest of Los Angeles.” ~wikipedia.org

You could see from miles away great swatches of yellow and orange on the hill sides, and I was so excited to see fields of flowers.

Super Bloom Carrizo Plain Nat Monument

There were Coreopsis, Two-toned Tidy Tips, Goldfields which were mostly spent, Phacelia, and Baby Blue Eyes just to name some that I saw in abundance.

The field above was mostly Leafystem Coreopsis growing I think.  Here’s two more closer looks.

Coreopsis Wildflowers-Super Bloom 2017

Coreopsis- Super Bloom 2017

We hung around the Soda Lake area for a few hours, but I could have easily spent the whole day, but we also wanted to get to our final destination and be by the beach for sunset.

I hope you all have a wonderful week-end filled with smiles and laughter!

Nikon Df| Nikkor 28-105mm, Nikkor 20mm f/1.8g| Canon 500D close up Lens| Delkin Digital Film| PS CC 2017

More to come…