Be sure to send in your good wildlife photos, as I can always use more.
Today’s batch is from regular contributor Joe Dickinson, whose notes and IDs are indented:
Here are some photos from a recent trip over to Pinnacles National Park in central California. Unfortunately, this time we did not see the condors for which the park has become known since they were introduced a few years ago.
California quail (Callipepla californica) were abundant, always in pairs but no chicks yet.
This young rattlesnake is probably Crotalus oreganus, the western rattlesnake.
I believe this is a western fence lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis).
There has been much talk here in California of the “superbloom” following a wet winter and spring. The California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) is always prominent at this time of year in Pinnacles, but maybe they were especially showy this year.
Finally, here is a bit of the scenery from which the park takes its name.
The last pic looks like a lizard resting their neck on a rock picking up some sun.
Thanks for the great photos! Just out of curiosity is the young rattlesnake dead? There appears to be blood on the ground to the left of its head and there seems to be an insect climbing up its nose.
Yes, I had the same thought. All I can say is that when we passed the same spot returning from our walk maybe 30-40 minutes later, it was gone. Crawled away or carried away, I can’t say. You may understand that I elected not to prod it in the first place.
Thanks!
Great pictures! Thank you for sharing.
Nice!
We mapped Pinnacles Monument in Earth Science at UCSC…35 years ago. I believe the rocks are rhyolite, a silicon rich volcanic rock.
That’s right. The rocks making up the pinnacles are a granitic, porphyritic breccia.
Nice desert views. We have lots of California Quail here in Idaho too. They are on our driveway and in our bushes. I’ve come to admire them considerably.
Nice to see the pictures of the Pinnacles. I had the opportunity to visit repeatedly, tagging along to a conference my wife took part in that fell in peak wildflower season.
In good years, I could see upwards of 150 species in bloom.
The San Andreas fault runs along the eastern margin of the Pinnacles: these rhyolitic peaks are just the western half of the roots of an old stratovolcano that was torn apart by movement on the transform fault. The eastern half lies on the North American plate about 200 miles/310 km to the south near the southern end of the Central Valley. I think I’ve been able to see both formations on flights between Portland and LA.
Lovely pink rock!
(Or pink-total-environment.)