The last two weeks I have been out scouting for wildflowers in Arizona. It’s still early, but they have sprouted and some are even blooming. Typically, I show only my favorite and/or best photos on my blog and thought it might be fun to show some documentary photos of the desert. This way you can see what I am seeing when creating my best images. Below is a gallery and you can click on each image to see a larger version and I should mention all were taken with my compact Nikon Coolpix P7000.
Just nine days ago the Mexican Gold Poppies were starting to bloom as you can see in the first image. Today, those poppies were mostly gone. I was disappointed as I expected to see more blooming. The poppies we had seen along the trail were gone. The bladderpod mustard is past peak and didn’t look as good today. What I believe is palmer’s crinklemat no longer had flowers today either. On the plus side, I did see several lupine sprouts and some were still covered in raindrops from yesterday’s rain. This area is certainly full of surprises as I saw a pincushion cactus in bloom just over a week ago and today I saw a buckhorn cholla with a bloom already open. Typically cactus do not bloom until April.
Hiking about 6 miles roundtrip today the sky was full of beautiful white puffy clouds. Once back to the trailhead I noticed that the clouds had turned dark in the direction I had just come from. About 15 minutes later it rained and I was glad to be off the trail, although my rain jacket was with me. Scouting for wildflowers in the Arizona desert can certainly be full of surprises from sunshine, unexpected blooms and the sky changing from sunshine to a rain shower!
Different Isn't Wrong, It's Just Different 