| |
|
| | |
|
| Car Camping | |
|
| | Car Camping | | 1 Day 18 Hrs 30 Mns | | |
| | | |
| |
| Linked |
|
none
[ show ]
| no linked trail guides |
| Partners |
|
none
[ show ]
| no partners | | Host: gummo
Status: Mid-card heel
Mood: Splendorous
Mission: to find and photograph as many sidewinders as possible without further injuring my ankle (I accomplished the first half of this goal).
Weather: Sunny- mid to high 70s 
Song: Holland 1945 by Neutral Milk Hotel (https://www.youtube.com/embed/sCjpbjCH5L0)
Audiobook: At Home by Bill Bryson (https://www.youtube.com/embed/E491FLDzTNY)
Arrival Time: ~3:30am 4-2-2013
Departure: ~10pm 4-3-2013
Highlights: 20 snake sightings!, one big osprey, watching two sun spiders fight one another, finding a natural spring, and seeing two sidewinders mating (tho, sadly, I interrupted their lovemaking).
Body:
First, I'd like to point out that Joshua Tree is crawling with critters this year. Lots of tortoise sightings reported (heard one crawling in the rocks, but I could not locate it), and I doubled the amount of snakes that I saw last time that I was here.
I was supposed to go with my friend so we can cover more ground, but he canceled at the last minute. Nonetheless, I found more than what I anticipated, and more than I could handle. I caught so many scorpions, sun spiders, western banded geckos, and even a kangaroo rat. I didn't have the time and energy to photograph them all. On the down side, Joshua Tree is very dry and very few flowers are blooming this year, which is not like Joshua Tree.
Last year, Joshua Tree seemed infested with desert iguanas and side-blotched lizards. Now the sidewinders have taken over, and they are much bigger than last year's sightings. Sidewinders are generally 10"-12" long. These sidewinders were almost double that.
The Tally:
15 sidewinders
2 small shovel-nosed snakes
1 spotted Leaf-nosed snake
1 injured gopher snake
1 injured patch-nosed snake (no pic)
5 desert iguana (one with a newly broken tail not of my doing).
1 osprey
1 red-tailed hawk (no pic)
Several whiptails (only caught one), western banded geckos, sun spiders, scorpions of all sizes, ghost beetles, and praying mantes.
Conclusion:
Joshua Tree is a the best place to find sidewinders, scorpions, and sun spiders, and the worst place to have an Easter Egg Hunt.
End notes:
In addition, my Olympus camera is getting repaired because it got too much sand in it, so I had to resort to my Nikon. I'm not used to the Nikon, so I was limited to what I could do, and a lot of photos did not come out as well. The Nikon is a much slower camera to operate, and I missed a lot of shots because of it - specifically the sidewinders mating. The photo quality of this photo-set is much lower than what I expect, but I had fun anyway. |
| _____________________
| | |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Route Editor
Route Scout
