Tag Archives: fiddleneck

Spring Fiddleneck Flowers

Spring Fiddleneck Flowers
Spring fiddleneck flowers, California grasslands.

Spring Fiddleneck Flowers. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Spring fiddleneck flowers, California grasslands.

The photograph comes from Carrizo Plain National Monument, but it could be anywhere across a wide range of California locations this time of year. Beginning in late winter and extending into early spring, California enters what I call the “impossibly green season.” While much of the state can be brown and dry most of the year, colors near the ned of the wet season are amazing — in the best years and in the right places the wildflower displays are astonishing.

I was actually more in landscape photographer mode on this afternoon, focusing on long views across flower-carpeted valleys toward distant mountains, as sunlight and passing showers moved over the area. But this photograph goes in a different direction, focusing up close on these flowers and intentionally blurring the background.


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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Twitter | Flickr | FacebookEmail

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question. (Click this post’s title first if you are viewing on the home page.)


All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Late-Winter Fiddlenecks

Late-Winter Fiddlenecks
Fiddleneck blossoms near the end of winter.

Late-Winter Fiddlenecks. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Fiddleneck blossoms near the end of winter.

Two weeks ago — it seems like years now — I made my last pre-lockdown visit to a favorite natural area on Friday the 13th of this month. We had attended our last public event a week before and were already in the process of adopting social-distancing measures — a bit ahead of the curve and a bit before such things were no longer optional around here. On this visit I minimized my contacts, traveling self-contained back and forth so that the only stop I had to make was at a local gas station when I got back home.

The experience was both rewarding and somewhat strange. The main flocks I go to see had apparently departed just a few days earlier. There was almost no one else there — normally a good thing, but strange now. Against that backdrop it was clear that even on this late-winter day spring was arriving. I paused from photographing birds to make some photographs of an exuberant patch of fiddle neck blossoms.


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.

Blog | About | Flickr | FacebookEmail

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.


All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.