Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Mumday interpreted

 

I'm afraid I don't know the name of these SCREAMING bright flowers, but they are part of the xeriscaping at the Joshua Tree NP visitor center, and I'm pretty sure it's native. That color killed me.
I think it kinda freaked out my camera, too. =)


Lucky, lucky, lucky to be in the park during a storm.


Yow. Calling all herp-ers!

Reading my Peterson's field guide, the description best matches Sceloporus virgatus, striped plateau lizard, but then I look at the range map, and it doesn't even overlap California. Slevin's bunchgrass lizard also looks pretty good, S. slevini, but like S. virgatus, it's barely in the US on the map. I've looked through the list on http://www.californiaherps.com/southwest.html#lizards and frankly am not sure.

Thoughts? Any desert herp folks wanna take a stab? Or, really, just anyone better at lizard ID than moi?


Lovely palms at the oasis near the 29 Palms visitor center.


Hee. This shot cracks me up.
This is why:


Look at the verrrrry bottom just right of center.

Yes, that's a truck. I LOVED what I was seeing but it was from a parking lot and there were cars in the way, but I was determined so just cranked up the angle, so who's to know? =)


Lovely to be in the desert during a storm.


This is, IMHO, a GENIUS ad campaign with outrageous style that just makes me SO HAPPY! I wrote down the name of the guy who designed it, but I'm not sure I can find it... ah, FOUND it:  Tim Palin. I think he's a GENius. I am presently working on confirming which Tim Palin it is...


This makes me happy on so many levels.


1. this is a great bakery, 2. the design is AMAZING and colors delightful, 3. I love how you can see this shot as the inside of a corner or as the corner of a cube poking out at you. So very Escher. prrrrrrrrr.

=)

biobabbler

P.S. I have not yet written WORD ONE for NaNoWriMo and I still have to workout! Lawdy, SUCH the slug today.

6 comments:

  1. The 'screaming' plant is CA fuschia, Epilobium canum or whatever species they have down there. They bloom at the end of summer and are bright. Hummers love them. http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?enlarge=0000+0000+0801+0068
    The liz looks a lot like the b&w photo of a female side-blotched lizard (Uta stansburiana) in my The Lives of Desert Animals in Joshua Tree Natl Mon. Females apparently look a lot diff than males. Hey, thanks for the excuse to use that book I picked up at an auction last year.

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  2. AWEsome, Cindy. THANKS!!! Funny: I saved the photo as fuschia based on the color. I wondered about Uta, 'cause the scales looked pretty smooth, but I wasn't sure. There sure is a lot of variation: http://www.californiaherps.com/lizards/pages/u.stansburiana.html. =) So glad that book was handy =) Thanks again.

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  3. Love all your photos! I can relate to your truck-in-great-view picture -- we took a trip out west over the summer and I was constantly trying to angle the lens above the rest stop, highway, etc. to get a good shot.

    We drove near Joshua Tree NP on our trip but it wasn't on the roster (though we did go to over a dozen National Parks). Love the vacuum!

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  4. The lizard is Uta stansburiana, side-blotched lizard. Last I checked, there was no consensus about subspecies. Color pattern is often variable, even within a geographic unit that you'd reasonably refer to as "the same place." Nice example, though!

    - Don Tate, Lompoc

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  5. Great--Thanks so much Don, I really appreciate it! Funny, I've dealt with Uta before (in the field). Guess it's been too long. =)

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Cool people write inside rectangles....