Sunset after a rain in Weldon, CA

It’s been a month since I arrived in Ridgecrest, California. The Mojave holds a lot of beauty. Everyone tells me spring is the best time to be here and I’m glad to arrive at such a fortuitous time. However as things begin to warm up I’m noticing the faint green shading in the hill sides turning browner and browner.

Last week I participated in some rare plant monitoring in The Kelso Canyon that lies within the Bright Star Wilderness area which is in the Southern Sierras and the northeastern edge of our field office. This is truly a gorgeous area. To drive up out of the desert and see a creek heavily lined with cottonwoods and tufts of grass and nettles is a rare and refreshing sight. Unfortunately, my camera was dead for most of this trip.

But I included some photos of other cool things! I especially enjoy the Beavertail blossoms. This week was also exciting because we got to see our first Desert Tortoise! Such cute little creatures.

Beaver tail cactus bloom

A lone raven over the rademancher hills above ridge crest

Linanthus dichotomous

A close up of the Kelso Creek Monkey Flower

A size comparison of the Monkey flower

The Kelso Creek monkey flower a rare species endemic to this region with only 9 known populations

Wild donkeys

1st Desert Tortoise sighting!!

An accidental selfie taken while trying to photograph a flower

Hope everyone else’s internship is going as well as I feel mine is. I love the desert. Or wherever one might be.

We also made our first seed collection this week. We collected Plantago ovata . This little annual is widespread but has such small little seeds and is often under 6″ tall. This meant lots of stooping to collect nearly microscopic seeds.

Then we collected wildflowers for this weekends upcoming Wildflower festival which is here in Ridgecrest! A great chance to learn the local areas flora. So much variety. I saw at least a 100 different flowers all in the same room! What a information overload but truly worth it.

I think that’s everything!

Robbie Wood

BLM Ridgecrest Field Office