There's a jungle of volunteer sunflowers...

brightening the high desert landscape, many as tall as a person. It’s quite the display in Castle Valley and elsewhere.

The sun flares in these images are a result of closing down the camera’s aperture to its smallest opening. I manually set it at f/22 and make sure I have a very clean lens and shoot directly into the Sun. Easy.

Stem tips ablaze...

from the summer heat, well, maybe that’s an exaggeration. The only splash of bright color in the high desert in early summer is provided by the vibrant broom snakeweed seen below.

Broom snakeweed (Gutierrezia sarothrae).

Forests of stamens...

topped with millions of anthers producing trillions of pollen particles in countless wildflowers during this season’s super bloom in the high desert is really hammering my allergies. It’s been quite miserable this year, especially if one likes to breathe freely.

Macro image of prickly pear cactus blossom showing the stigma (green bulb in center) surrounded by hundreds of stamens consisting of anthers at the tips of each filament. Amazing micro universe when one gets small.

Covered with pollen particles...

a bee emerges from a prickly pear cactus blossom in the rock garden. On to the next flower, a pollinator’s work is never done.

Prickly pear cactus (genus Opuntia).

NOTE: This image was shot with a handheld 400 mm telephoto lens from a standing position. Nearly as good as a tripod-mounted macro lens close to the subject.

The now-blossoming globemallow...

in Castle Valley is attracting the tiny pollinating bees and I’m on the lookout for their ground-dwelling hives.

Globe mallow bee (Diadasia diminuta) on the common globemallow flower (Sphaeralcea coccinea).

UPDATE: Here’s a shot taken this evening as a bee settles in for a slumber as the blossom closes for the night.

The high desert is exploding with blossoms...

of a variety of wildflowers and shrubs following the very wet spring. It’s quite glorious.

Harriman’s yucca, also known as narrow-leaf yucca (Yucca harrimaniae).

Whipple’s fishhook cactus (Sclerocactus whipplei).

Yellow cryptanth (Cryptantha flava).

Cliffrose (Purshia mexicana), incredibly aromatic and sweet-smelling.

Anderson’s larkspur (Delphinium andersonii). Toxic!

Today's toxic topic...

involves this appropriately named - both common and scientific - poisonous beauty, now in full bloom in Castle Valley. In other words, don’t eat it.

Panicled death camas (Toxicoscordion paniculatum) among the blackbrush (Coleogyne ramosissima).

Resembling upturned paintbrushes...

the brilliant Indian paintbrush is the dominant flash of color on the slow-to-awaken high desert this chilly and wet spring.

Vibrant Common Indian paintbrush (Castilleja chromosa) with the greening Round Mountain.

This spark of scarlet beauty is enhanced by the hemiparasitic nature of this perennial plant, robbing water and nutrients from nearby neighbors.

National Geographic is coming to town...

late next month to film the industrious globe mallow bee as it goes about its business pollinating the prolific globemallow flower. Documentary film producers caught my previous blog post with images (May 2021) showing their activities in Castle Valley and are sending a crew with a cinemagraphic camera to record their fascinating behaviors as a part of a series on the national parks. Very cool!

Here’s a nice article by local scribe Ron Drake who writes for the Moab Times-Independent that describes the upcoming project in Castle Valley.

The tiny mallow bee (Diadasia diminuta) specifically collects pollen from the desert globemallow plant (Sphaeralcea ambigua).

The mallow bee constructs hives underground, the entrances to which are tiny sedimentary towers, or turrets, only an inch (a couple centimeters) tall.

Mallow bee fully loaded with pollen entering hive through a turret.