Tag archives: Carrizo Plain National Monument
It was another 2:30 am wake up call to drive from slumbering Carpinteria out to the Carrizo Plain National Monument. I was chasing another breathtaking sunrise in partly cloudy weather, another hopeful moment with whatever grassland fauna revealed itself. Although it would’ve been real easy to sleep in, wildlife waits for nobody. It would’ve gnawed […]
From afar, the Temblor Range in the Carrizo Plain National Monument was swept in different shades of yellow. Rancher’s fireweed, goldfields, and hillside daisies brightened the arid mountain biome. From where I stood at the base of the Caliente Mountains looking east, it was the only color on what are typically barren hillsides. Another super […]
It was nearly dark when I arrived on a lonely dirt road within the Carrizo Plain National Monument. I pulled off behind a cluster of salt bush, grabbed my binoculars and scanned the immediate region in fading light. About 100 yards to the east, I saw two rambunctious San Joaquin kit fox pups garnering attention […]
She convulsed mightily standing watch on the fringe of her burrows. Her black milk ducts protruded through buff, tan fur as her belly full of rich milk warbled while she belted out a series of quavering trills warning her kits of potential danger. The watchful San Joaquin antelope ground squirrel (Ammospermophilus nelsoni) guarded her territory […]
Resting easy in my tent, headlamp burning bright, I was putting pen to paper when I heard giant kangaroo rats (GKRs) communicating with one another throughout a star-filled night. From one grassland burrow to the next, the drum of their oversized feet tapped the ground at a feverish pace, sending a message to other GKRs […]
I almost lost them in the densely vibrant fields of hillside daisies within the Carrizo Plain National Monument. They were about a half-mile west of where I stood, my Canon 300mm IS lens aimed in their direction. I was hoping for them to meander my way, but with wildlife you never know. They have their […]
The nameless dirt road turned out to be a nighttime buffet for a squadron of opportunistic burrowing owls. It was all about the crickets and grasshoppers, a menagerie of entomology living in the tall grasses and the cunning eight-inch-tall owls gobbling down as many as they could before taking a break. As I inched forward […]
The ears were a dead giveaway. As the morning sun warmed the grasslands of California’s Central Valley, it was the large, backlit ears of a San Joaquin kit fox (Vulpes macrotis mutica) that caught my eye. Red blood vessels braiding like a red river lit up each of the fox’s ears, allowing the smallest canid […]
It’s the mobile basecamp transporting you to hidden natural wonders, where time slows down and the only set schedule moves along on its own course. You’re just along for the ride because you chose to be there, making the drive with enough provisions to see you through on your car camping excursion. All you need […]
It was nearly dark on the Carrizo Plain National Monument. I pulled up in my truck on a plateau of dry, crunchy grass overlooking the Temblor Range on the Elkhorn Plain in the southeast corner of the monument, coyotes yelping in unison in some nameless canyon. I was tired from five full days of guiding […]
I think I was suffering from anxiety. Wracking my brain trying to figure out where to position myself for that rare event of a super moon, blue/blood moon and lunar eclipse, a simultaneous solar systematical natural wonder that hadn’t occurred since 1866, I had to force myself to choose. I finally settled on the Carrizo […]
