I was hiking the dirt trails on Mississippi Bar when I first noticed these tiny little critters back in June 2017. I wasn’t sure if they were tiny frogs or toads, but they seemed to be nearly everywhere in the dust and the weeds, the largest maybe the size of a US quarter and many of them even smaller! Since then I’ve learned they are Pacific chorus frogs, migrating from the dried-up vernal pools to… I don’t know where.

I’m still trying to ID this wildflower; shot in early July 2016

Fearsome-looking looking tocalote aka Centaurea melitensis or Maltese star thistle; shot in July 2017

Common buckeye moth (Junonia coenia Hübner) — mid June 2017

Unknown plant, July 2016