to the Castle Valley community and I eagerly welcome it to my digital diet way out here in the middle of gorgeous nowhere.
Exactly one year ago today...
the Great Blue Herons returned to their rookery on the Colorado River. Guess who showed up today?
Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias).
Bonus picture: Western Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma californica).
Double bonus pic: Spotted Towhee (Pipilo maculatus).
Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get all the birds to pose calmly and look in the same direction?!
Two high desert shrubs...
join the spring bloom along the Colorado River.
Fendlerbush (Fendlera rupicola).
Fremont’s Mahonia (Mahonia fremontii) is also wonderfully aromatic.
Early morning reconnaissance flight...
by two Canada Geese above the Colorado River.
Canada Geese (Branta canadensis).
A pile of local history...
is marked by this heap of aspen wood waste, all that remains from a shingle splitting operation that existed on this site. The locals in Castle Valley refer to the nearby irrigation pond as the Quakie Shake pond in recognition of this little bit of history.
More feathered visitors...
around the feeding stations this morning as additional species discover the horn of plenty at my place.
American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis).
Eurasian Collared-Dove (Streptopelia decaocto).
House Sparrow (Passer domesticus).
Time for a bath...
for this White-Crowned Sparrow. Be sure to get under those arms, er, wings.
Montana is supposed to be...
“Big Sky Country” but I beg to differ this evening as sunset approaches.
Vibrance returns to the high desert...
as the spring bloom commences in southern Utah.
Macro image of Indian paintbrush (genus Castilleja).
Newberry’s twinpod (Physaria newberryi).
The Milky Way is back...
this season and here are several compositions that I shot on a nocturnal mission between 1 to 4:30 am in Castle Valley, Utah. Never waste a new moon!
These are all 20 sec images at 3200 ISO, tripod-mounted Canon 6D with 14mm Rokinon lens. I used a small LED panel to illuminate the foreground subjects. Some light post-processing consisting of adjusting brightness and contrast, and some cropping.
Volunteer bucket brigade...
of about 10 community members, all hauling water to help establish an experimental planting of sand dropseed grass in the upper part of Castle Valley, Utah. The purpose of the project, in cooperation with the Bureau of Land Management, is to attempt to establish a fire-resistant native grass that spreads prolifically on dry and disturbed soils.
Nearly 500 plugs of sand dropseed grass were planted last autumn, in equal numbers within an enclosure and outside the enclosure in order to assess the grazing impact on the immature plants.
This project was enabled by the Castle Valley Fire Department which provided a small tanker to bring the water to the site.
A sure sign of spring...
are the Western Meadowlarks belting out their lovely song, from high in the tree tops, while establishing and maintaining their territories.
Adult male Western Meadowlark (Sturnella neglecta).
Close approach of Luna and Jupiter...
high above the La Sal Mountains on this crystalline morning.
Brightly colored velvet ants...
are actually wasps. Males look like true wasps but lack a stinger, while the females (seen here) are flightless and one should be wary when handling them as they have a painful sting.
Female adult velvet ant (Dasymutilla sp.) approximately 1 cm long.
Mars on Earth...
can be found in southern Utah!
Perseverance rover track imaged by the Mastcam-Z camera.
RadRover 5 eMTB track on southeastern Utah alluvium.
Panoramamania...
from the divide between Castle and Professor Valleys. Click on image to enlarge.
Colorado River flow...
visualized below Castle Valley, Utah. It’s my intent to visit this point as spring snowmelt and runoff proceeds, with periodic posts every week or so. At the conclusion of runoff season I’ll post a comparative image gallery of all the photographs at different stages of discharge. Stay tuned.
View upstream of the Colorado River at Peach Beach below Castle Valley, Utah.
Instantaneous discharge at noon on 3 April 2021 is 2,600 cubic feet per second (cfs) at the Cisco gage, 29 miles upstream.
Castle Valley panoramascape...
on this stunning spring day. Click on image to enlarge.
An avian predator drops by...
the feeding stations this afternoon. My, what big eyes it has for one of the smallest raptors in North America, appearing somewhat like a Cyclopes in this image.
Juvenile male American Kestrel (Falco sparverius), the smallest falcon in North America, also known as a Sparrow Hawk.
La Sal Mountain's snowpack...
is normal to above normal for this point in the water year, and that’s no April Fools’ joke. The winter storms that swept through the southern Rockies in mid- to late-March added tremendously to the snowpack. Here’s the data (click on each graph to enlarge):
Snow water equivalent time series graph for the La Sal Mountains (upper) SNOTEL site at 9,578 feet. Current water year data is indicated by the black line; Median values indicated by green line.
Snow water equivalent time series graph for the La Sal Mountains (lower) SNOTEL site at 8,783 feet. Current water year data is indicated by the black line; Median values indicated by green line.