Field of Fiddleneck Flowers. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A field of late-winter California fiddleneck blossoms.
Photographing wildflowers wasn’t really my plan on this outing. I had gone to this place for what would likely be my final chance to photograph migratory birds before they leave California and head north. As it turned out, many of them had already departed, probably only a day or two earlier. There were other birds to photograph, some of which I had overlooked when the huge migratory flocks commanded my attention, but it was clear that the winter bird season was ending.
But something else was starting to happen — the onset of the green season and wildflowers. California’s “winter” seems odd to people who live where winter has a more traditional quality. Here, winter is when the state turns green, transforming from the brown and dry end of autumn to the impossibly green period of March and the start of April. Our “spring” wildflowers begin to appear weeks before the onset of solar spring. The birds were a bit sparse on this morning, but the flowers were erupting.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
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