Saguaro Cactus Blossoms 2007 May 15
Last Up date:
2007 May 19
Page started: 2007 May 17
These photos are reduced in size and quality for faster downloads.
The photos are links to the original just as they came from the
camera. I have the camera set to: M2 which creates 1600x1200 pixel
images, and "fine" (which is the middle out of three) level of
compression. According to the manual this allows about 24 images to
be stored on a 16MB memory chip. That figures out to be roughly 666
Kilobytes per photo. I am intentionally using far less than the 6.0
million pixels the camera has.
It has been a very dry winter and spring in Quartzsite, but this is
when the Giant Saguaro Cactus start to bloom.
So I decided to drive about 10 miles east, towards Phoenix, where
there are some hills to take some photos.
I needed hills, so I could get up high enough above a cactus to get a
view more or less at the level of the blooms.
For those who know the area: My van is parked about 2 miles south of
I-10 along "Gold Nugget" road. Actually I pulled off about a half mile
west along a Jeep trail
I left about 7:30 AM to take these photos while it is below 80 degrees.
I wanted to get it done and get out of the heat.
All the low cactus, are a royal pain to walk through.
Some folks call them "Jumping Cholla" because it seems if you just
walk by, some will be sticking in you. They have micro-barbs on them
which makes them hard to pull out once they get in your skin. The
only solution is to be very careful.
Yes, there are a couple Blossoms on this Saguaro, but they are too
high for me.
This Saguaro Cactus is rather young--no arms yet.
Even better it is slightly
down in a wash, and from just a few feet closer, I think I can get some
photos. A jolly good time to try out the 12X optical zoom of my new
camera.
I think the green buds are yet to bloom, and the darker ones have
already done so, and should develop a fruit the Indians are said to have
used. I wonder how they got to the top of these beasts to pick the
fruit?
Maybe the Indians used helicopters to pick the fruits off the tops of the
Saguaros. ;-) I think they and the Homing-Pigeons had brains with build in GPS's. They seemed to navigate very well.
The flowers take lots of water to make them soft an pliable enough to
open up; and so they only last for a day or so. But
that gives bees enough time to do their thing.
I am quite pleased with my Canon S3 camera. It's "Image Stabilization"
made it possible to take these photos without a tripod. All were taken
from a distance of about 20 feet.
Yes, there is an ant on the left blossom, and a bee just above the
next one.
I stepped to my right just a bit to take this one.
Wouldn't you know it? Just after I took the above photo a bee came
along so I took a second one. I should delete the previous one, but
for the time being I'll let it stay.
Yes, these ugly things bloom too.
A green flower! I wish the bee's couldn't see them. It would make
life much easier for me, the jack-rabbits, and coyotes.
The poor Ocotillo ignores the seasons and puts out leaves when there is
enough water.
"It is much more closely related to both the primrose family and the
olive family than to the cactus family." From: Flowers of the
Southwest deserts by Natt N. Dodge
Apparently, it blooms with or without enough water to produce leaves.
Up close, it's quite a respectable flower.
This one is mostly buds, but a couple have opened up.
This time of the year it gets too hot to spend much time in the sun on the
desert. It took me about two hours, and two quarts of water to take
these photos. By about 10AM I left to get back to where I have, a very
effective evaporative cooler, to spend the rest of the day.
You can:
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It has been a very dry winter and spring in Quartzsite, but this is
when the Giant Saguaro Cactus start to bloom.
