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2023 Trip Chronicles: Contents
San Luis Reservoir Wildlife Refuge 3/27
San Luis Reservoir Wildlife Refuge 3/31
San Luis Reservoir Wildlife Refuge 4/1
San Luis Reservoir Wildlife Refuge 4/5
Precipitation during our 2023 rainy season was well above normal. However in the San Francisco Bay region, it was not as high as what fell in the Sierra Nevada range or coastal Central and Southern California that has made national news. The cooler than normal late winter remarkably delayed vegetation bud/flower/seed cycles throughout the state about 2 weeks. April became the new March. On March 27, I made my first local regional trip to check conditions at the Pacheco Pass region that I consider as having the best wildflower displays in the region after wet winters. The last year of a large bloom was 2015 when there was actually also more rain:
https://www.davidsenesac.com/2015_Trip_Chronicles/spring_2015-1b.html
That was also the peak of vibrant spring greenery but before most wildflowers rose. Note the green hills on image at page top. Over the next couple weeks as wildflowers increasingly exploded, I drove the 60 miles south during 5 early mornings that produced some fine blue oak savanna landscapes on these first two web pages. At the same time, reports of rising wildflowers were showing on DesertUSA dot com, the old Calphoto enthusiast website, and on news websites with lots of photography enthusiasts excited. On April 5, I did a one day conditions checking road trip south on US101 to Paso Robles, west on SR58 into Shell Creek, west to Carrizo Plain, south on Elkhorn Road a few miles, then north on Bittercreek Road, before continuing north on I5. I took no A6000 photos while just a few ELPH190 shots, as was not impressed over what I saw. I reported on the web that northern Carrizo and the Temblor Range were not likely to be impressive.
After spending the night sleeping inside my Forester at the San Luis Reservoir Wildlife Refuge parking lot, I worked the wildlifw refuge. A week later given a low breeze weather forecast, I gambled on the first of two trips south to the southern Carrizo and SR166 Cuyama River zones that had been a mystery without reports but for which I had a bit of positive information for. The spectacular work from those two successful trips are on subsequent pages 3 and 4. Because the flower cycles were delayed into April, the higher altitude sun clear days quickly pushed plants through their cycles leaving short peak blooming periods for best aesthetic conditions. Note on each page, I usually only add binomial species names to common names once. Wildflower listings are dependent on what I can see at 100% pixels that may not be discernible with these small downsized for web images but will be once I begin publicly exhibiting full images on large 8k displays. It is such a joy to physically experience such colorful landscapes in person beyond what any 2 dimensional photographs can render.
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The above modest blue oak savanna subject, a 4 column focus stack and stitch blend, within the San Luis Reservoir Wildlife Refuge, was the first time I used my Sony A6000 during 2023. Before sunrise Monday March 27, 2023 I drove the 60 miles from San Jose to Pacheco Pass that is against the heavy morning commute. At 8am, the Sun altitude is too low to illuminate off angle vegetation well and it shows herein. Grasses were also wet with dew causing a contrast lowering white cast. The large tree on frame left is a blue oak, quercus douglasii, as is the partial one on the right that is just leafed out with bright yellow green leaves. Behind it is an old California buckeye, aesculus californica. Among small wildflowers visible amid grasses are California violet, shooting stars, blue dicks, bicolor lupine, popcorn flower, lace pod, tomcat clover, white seablush, fiddleneck, filaree.
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Over the morning worked a few more subjects in the refuge before a short venture into adjacent, empty of vehicle visitors, Pacheco Pass State Park. There worked this slope dense with California violets aka johnny-jump-ups, viola pedunculata, that mainly sprout from networks of rhizome roots. Also visible Padre's shooting star, primula clevelandii, aka Mt Diablo shooting stars, blue dicks, bicolor lupine, filaree. I could see green herbs of many wildflowers just about to flower so now quite enthused, made plans to return on any following days with low breeze weather forecasts.
At page top was my last subject this day, and the strongest. An excellent foreground of California poppy, eschscholtzia californica, California violet, Mt Diablo shooting stars, blue dicks, dichelostemma capitatum, popcorn flower, bicolor lupine, tomcat clover, trifolium willdenovii, fiddleneck, filaree, with huge San Luis Reservoir filled to capacity surrounded by lushly green blue oak savanna grassland and the San Joaquin Valley north of Los Banos is in the hazy distance. California poppies are rather limited, spotty, about this pass zone, so this subject was exceptional. I only attempted a single frame because breezes were increasing at the time so was barely able to get in enough focus stack shots. Most water in vast San Luis Reservoir is pumped uphill from O'Neill Forebay that is fed from the California Acqueduct. During evenings, water can be released generating electrical power.
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I returned four days later to San Luis Reservoir Wildlife Refuge on Friday March 31, 2023. My first subject was moss, lichen, and the unusual trentepholia algae, on a shaded coast live oak trunk. Trentepohlia aurea is a species of filamentous terrestrial green alga with a worldwide distribution. It is common at Pacheco Pass on ridge line coast live oaks damp shaded area trunks providing colorful subjects if one bothers to explore under their canopies that on windy sites drape branches down to ground level in order to block wind.
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At the east end of the main loop trail out of the small free parking lot opposite the state park entrance, are some excellent areas of early season wildflowers most springs. In fact, the earliest one will find in the San Francisco Bay Area region. Above amidst blue oaks and a coast live oak are California violet, California goldfields, lasthenia californica, Mt Diablo shooting stars, blue dicks, popcorn flower, bicolor lupine, tomcat clover, fiddleneck, lace pod, poison sanicle, white fiesta flower, filaree. This year given the rainfall pattern and cool temperatures delaying growth, there were less shooting stars because the species normally peaks in early March.
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A view across glowing backlit goldfields, California violet, Mt Diablo shooting stars, blue dicks, tomcat clover, white seablush, bicolor lupine, filaree. I positioned my tripod to put the back row of shooting stars to stand out against shaded blue oaks and California buckeyes.
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This view is northwestward across miles of blue oak and coast live oak savanna grasslands. Just beyond the blue oak at frame center, terrain slopes down to out of view noisy with semi trucks is the 4 lane SR152 highway. In the grasses at 9am, half open California poppy, California violet, Mt Diablo shooting stars, blue dicks, bicolor lupine, tomcat clover, fiddleneck, filaree. Beyond the highway in the distance, private cattle range lands would make a superb future addition to the state park.
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Visible within this image are popcorn flower, plagiobothrys nothofulvus, bicolor lupine, lupinus bicolor, fiddleneck, amsinckia intermedia, blue dicks, dichelostemma capitatum, California violet, goldfields, filaree.
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The next day was forecast with lighter breezes so on Saturday morning April 1, 2023 drove back. A dense patch of California goldfields, lasthenia californica, California violet, Mt Diablo shooting stars, blue dicks, tomcat clover, white seablush, plectritis macrocera, bicolor lupine, filaree. Note the blue waters of San Luis Reservoir between branches frame mid left. An example landscape showing why I consider areas of Pacheco Pass having the best spring wildflowers in the San Francisco Bay Area region.
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A small ephemeral marshy area with algae reflecting blue skies with coast live oak, quercus agrifolia, California poppy, California violets, Mt Diablo shooting stars, blue dicks, bicolor lupine, butter and eggs, lomatium.
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This area with some of the best dense wildflowers in the refuge, is just beyond the parking lot off to the right up the hill of the loop trail. In this view are coast live oak, California poppy, California violet, Mt Diablo shooting stars, blue dicks, popcorn flower, bicolor lupine, fiddleneck, filaree. Although the small bicolor lupine are dense, the downsized image so blends them with green vegetation that they are barely visible. In the enlarged vertical slice view, at 50% pixels, the lupine are easily visible.
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This was shot near the above TX02395-02456-3x1v image and is the best area with California poppy I've found in the Pacheco Pass area. At the hilltop are coast live oak. Wildflowers include the pink hued checker mallow, sidalcea malviflora, California violet, Mt Diablo shooting stars, blue dicks, popcorn flower, bicolor lupine, fiddleneck, filaree.
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An intimate landscape of white fiesta flower, pholistoma membranaceum, growing beside a mossy blue oak trunk. This shade loving densely tangling species is common beneath both blue and coast live oaks.
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An aesthetic Coastal Range marine sandstone neogene geology lichen covered outcrop with California poppy, California violet, popcorn flower, blue dicks, bicolor lupine, filaree.
Six days after my second Pacheco Pass visit Saturday, I drove down again on Wednesday April 5, 2023 while expecting that would be enough time for many of the herbs I seen flower. Indeed, wildflowers at many park slopes were near peak, but breezes were too strong so just enjoyed some fun at a secret streamside spot at San Luis Reservoir Wildlife Refuge before driving home.
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2023 Trip Chronicles: Contents
