April 9, 2023 Phacelia, Valley Butte and Blalock Wildlife Sanctuaries

I took a trip out to the Antelope Valley to visit the “wildlife sanctuaries” designated as such by Los Angeles County. These areas are amorphous plots of land that are protected from development. There are no trails or markers; rather you just meander through the area hoping for some serendipity when looking for plants and animals.

The furthest of these I went to is the remote “Phacelia Wildlife Sanctuary” which is near the border of Edwards Airforce Base in the Mojave desert. What makes this place a bit more special is that you have a chance of seeing some reptiles that have pretty much been wiped out of most places in the Antelope Valley.

My visit started out great with seeing a yellow-backed spiny lizard almost immediately after getting out of the car. I continued my good luck with seeing a creosote moth and a native bumblebee.

Unfortunately, my next “observation” was a human in a vehicle that drove by me on a dirt road that bisects the sanctuary. He parked his truck near my car which made me very suspicious since he did not come from the direction of civilization. I decided to stay within eyesight of my car in case something happened. My gut feeling was correct as I got within 100 yards of the vehicles. It was obvious this guy was up to no good. He tried to talk to me but I yelled out to him to leave me alone. Luckily, he had the sense to do so, got in his truck and sped off. It is always a bit disconcerting to be out in the middle of nowhere which I pretty much was, out of cell service, and have an encounter with some creepy human being.

Anyway, I breathed a sigh of relief when he left and could finally enjoy my exploration of the desert. With warming temperatures, I was expecting to see more insects but I still didn’t see many. I’m particularly concerned as the lack of bees is very noticeable, and even more so since it’s turning out to be an amazing wildflower year. And even though I sometimes feel as if I’ve seen most of the desert wildflowers, there are always more new ones to discover.

In addition to Phacelia Wildlife Sanctuary I stopped at Valley Butte Wildflower Sanctuary and finally Blalock Wildlife Sanctuary. Among my best finds of the day were: at least one cool insect, albeit somewhat common, a green blister beetle and several wildflowers that I hadn't seen before or see rarely. These include the unassuming Pringle's woolly sunflower, a delicate and quite lovey Cooper's wild cabbage, possibly hundreds if not thousands of sandblossoms, a crowned mullia, yellow peppercress and an amazing looking milkvetch I actually found along the side of a road.

I find it interesting how some years, certain flowers seem to dominate and you wonder what exact conditions have to happen between rain, sunlight and temperature that cause this to happen. For instance I haven't seen sandblossoms for several years and now there seem to be thousands. And I don't think I've ever seen yellow peppercress except out at Red Rock Canyon State Park yet this year I've seen it in a few places.

I feel like it is imperative to be out this year exploring for wildflowers as we don't know when and if we'll get another amazing rain year as this one was. Interestingly enough the amount of water pouring out of the San Gabriel Mountains into the Antelope Valley is such that on one street I had to ford a foot deep stream of water that was rushing rapidly down a wash many miles from those mountains. For some reason the "road closed" barrier was only on one direction of the road at least a mile away and there was no barrier on the direction in which I was traveling.

Posted on April 14, 2023 05:47 PM by naturephotosuze