a field trip and some scary things

hello there.

i am a horned lizard and i live here at the desert tortoise natural area
in the western mojave desert (i'm not the scary thing)...

in addition to me, horned lizard, there are 27 other species of reptiles, 29 species of breeding birds, 23 species of mammals and many species of arthropods living on the natural area...





we woke at 4:00 am and arrived to the mojave around 7:00 am, only missing one or two turns on unmarked gravel roads. a naturalist (ed) was there at the interpretive center (a trailer) and kindly answered all the questions we had before we headed out on the trails.





we hoped to see tortoises and ed knew just where one was so we followed him...

here she is! this is turquoise, she's a wild tortoise (gopherus agassizii) estimated to be around 40 to 50 years old. she's expected to live 30 to 40 more years, if she were a captive she could live 50 more years.

i could see her eyes open half way checking us out and then she squeezed them shut tucking her head in at the same time. she was quite uninterested in us. in order not to cause her undue stress we said goodbye and continued on to..

wildflowers! the last thing we thought we'd see in the desert at the end of may.

it was about this time that my camera stopped working. putting frustration aside, i was grateful for my little leica point and shoot. it takes more photos for this blog than my canon anyway...

thank you little leica for not failing me too...

sorry i didn't know the name of the pink flower above, but this is winter fat

(krascheninnikovi lanata) now used as a grazing plant by ranchers. indians made tea to drink and to wash their hair. the zunis chewed the fresh root and used them as a burn remedy.

birds collect the soft seed to line their nests.

here is my husband getting a photo of a lichen covered rock and...

this side-blotched lizard (uta stansburiana) isn't he a beauty? the weather was uncharacteristically cool so he was out warming himself on the rock. he tolerated several photos,

even posing for a few.

this is an ant ring, it looks a bit like a volcano doesn't it?

i wonder if anyone knows what this little tube is? can you even see it? most everything in the desert is camouflaged. this little turret here is the home of a desert dwelling spider called the wolf spider. he builds his home out of gravel, plant debris and rabbit pellets. then it ambush's it's prey. this is the scary thing. even scarier is the larger tarantula.

here is a perfect example of desert camouflage, can you see whats in this photo?

it's the super cute and friendly horned lizard.

(phrynosoma platyrhinos calidiarum)

aren't his markings gorgeous? we held him for a minute and then let him back down to the sand. as far as lizards go, these little guys have a wonderful personality.

this is one of my favorites, the paperbag bush (salazaria mexicana). the inflated seed pods resemble tiny paper bags. and just look at these colors.

a leopard lizard (gambelia wislizenii) , named for how stealth they are and how fast they run...

and here a zebra tail (calisaurus draconoides draconoides), because it has a striped tail (sorry that's not in the photo). zebra tails are one of the fastest desert reptiles, they can run up to

18 miles per hour.

here is a desert tortoise in it's burrow. they spend most of their lives underground in burrows or caves. it's fascinating how the shape of the burrow mirrors the shape of the tortoise.

we spent hours hiking around looking for these animals. the desert tortoise is california's state reptile. it was listed under the federal endangered species act in 1989 and is classed as threatened. this has been their home for millions of years, i've joined the desert tortoise preserve committee in hopes that they'll remain for millions more. i read that perhaps its because of their gentle, inoffensive ways and behavior, desert tortoises are very popular animals. it would be sad indeed if the tortoise was allowed to go extinct.

golden cholla

(opuntia echinocarpa)

creosote bush

(larrea tridentata)

this covers much of the deserts in california.
i love it.

it's the horned lizard again. actually it's one of his many cousins, we found several of these guys on the trail and in the washes...

see how sweet?

the sun was beginning its decline and so was i. we had been out walking/hiking for over 6 hours. first it was cold and windy, then it was hot and breezy. and now it was cooling down again and i was letting down my guard. can you see the small coiled object a quarter of the way up from the bottom in this photo?

it is the "mojave green" rattlesnake.

(crotalus scutulatus scutulatus)

reputed to possess the most toxic venom of any u.s. rattlesnake.

i almost stepped on it.

i wasn't scared, but chuck was. he saw it first and yanked me backwards just in the nick of time. it upset me to see him shaken, he said if my foot had come down it would have been on it.

after the initial scare we were so excited.

i don't think we were in any danger taking these photos. the snake was very calm and docile, it woke slowly and gently checked out the new visitors (us).

we watched it move out of it's coil, but only partially. it seemed to know we wouldn't cause it any harm and it wound it's self back up and seemed to go back to sleep.

(when we got back to the naturalist he id it as the mojave green,

a female that had recently given birth).

we'd decided it was time to head back home, our field trip had been a great success, we saw so much, more than we ever expected.

driving away from the natural area, on the gravel/dirt road to the highway, we had another fantastic find, here is chuck running back to make sure we didn't run over another....

snake.

this time a coachwhip or a gopher, we were not sure.

but he was a beauty.

it was a perfect ending to a great day.

♥ lori