Weekly wildflowers

I've been out to photograph the neighborhood wildflowers every Sunday except last week, when it was raining hard and I was tired. Today I finally made it to the headwaters trail (that is, I went two weeks ago too but my camera turned out to be full so I came back). The city recently acquired this land as parkland, which is great! Except... the little bit with the calypso orchids was apparently not part of the deal - it was marked with multiple "No Trespassing" signs, and poison oak was sprouting up around and in the trail. Oh well. I peeked a bit anyway but didn't see many. I knew of another area that has them too, but today it seemed steeper than I remembered, and there were lots of blackberry vines.

The oddest thing was that even though it was a sunny day and fairly warm, and it was mid-afternoon, I didn't see any other people for the longest time. Lots of birds, a very small and pretty blue butterfly, and a trusting garter snake, but no people. Eventually, when I was almost back to the car, there was a woman with a black lab.

Even though I didn't see many calypso orchids, I did find a new wildflower, one I don't remember seeing before. The leaves and growth habit was like a heuchera (coral bells), but the flower was altogether different - bright yellow and rather like a flattened-out buttercup.