Sunday, August 22, 2010

Cloud Time


Unusual, cloudy day in Tuolumne Meadows yesterday, with lenticular and strato-cumulus coverage and a healthy west wind. The grayness was not in the forecast, so that had some folks worried about getting rained on, but it wasn't that kind of cloud layer.
My group observed an osprey with a fish, being slowly pursued in an upward spiral by what I believe was a female Cooper's Hawk. Eventually the osprey dropped the fish from a couple hundred feet up, perhaps by accident, but perhaps to get the accipter to leave it alone.
Tuolumne has elephant's heads, yellow monkeyflower, purple asters, some paintbrush, groundsel, purple gentian, and lots of yampah in bloom. There are about 6-7 mosquitoes left in Tuolumne, so you can pretty much stow your bugspray til next summer.

1 comment:

  1. so the mosquitoes have finally thinned out - heard it was a magnificent year for them.

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