A week ago Saturday, the 22nd of March, we took a family outing to the Santa Rosa Plateau with my family. My Dad's brother Jim and his new fiancee Terri visited Grandma and Grandpa Rowley for Easter and Grandma's birthday. So, it was a big party that headed out to the hills to look at flowers.
We had a fun time. There were loads of people there, but there were also good numbers of flowers in bloom. A nice to way to celebrate Easter time, isn't it? Here's the Flickr album from the occasion: Santa Rosa Plateau Pictures.
Chocolate Lilies blooming at the Plateauhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2369544957/in/set-72157604295813652/
Jim and Terri are very knowledgeable about plants, so it was good to be there with them. The Chocolate Lilies, above, are a big draw at the plateau. We were able to find them pretty easily, as everybody seemed to know where they were. There were actually quite a lot, but some of them were fairly far into the preserve.
We also stopped by the Vernal Pools, where the shrimp and tadpoles were happily swimming, while being predated on lots of Garter Snakes. The snakes were swimming or slithering around the pools in Plague-like amounts. Loads of fun, since they're hardly poisonous. Funny story about poisonous snakes: we were birding Peter's Canyon yesterday. I was standing on the edge of the trail listening to some birds calling, when I heard a funny raspy rattling noise. "What sort of bird makes that noise?" I thought to myself. The sound came again, and I thought, "That's a mechanical sort of noise - something's shaking something." That's when I backed slowly away from the trail's edge as it rattled a third time. We didn't see the snake, but we didn't really want to make an effort.
Garter Snake checking me out.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2370383502/in/set-72157604295813652/
We also stopped by the Vernal Pools, where the shrimp and tadpoles were happily swimming, while being predated on lots of Garter Snakes. The snakes were swimming or slithering around the pools in Plague-like amounts. Loads of fun, since they're hardly poisonous. Funny story about poisonous snakes: we were birding Peter's Canyon yesterday. I was standing on the edge of the trail listening to some birds calling, when I heard a funny raspy rattling noise. "What sort of bird makes that noise?" I thought to myself. The sound came again, and I thought, "That's a mechanical sort of noise - something's shaking something." That's when I backed slowly away from the trail's edge as it rattled a third time. We didn't see the snake, but we didn't really want to make an effort.
Garter Snake checking me out.http://www.flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2370383502/in/set-72157604295813652/
Mammoth pictures are already up on Flickr, and we'll post about it in a bit.
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