Too bad there's no video of the Sandhill Cranes dancing

We took a day drive to Willow Creek Mountain, the source of the Little Shasta River.  Found lots of wildflowers, but got no pictures of the female Sooty Grouse or the courting Sandhill Cranes.

Arrow-leaf balsam root catches some sun.

Showy phlox peeps from the rock.

Three new white flowers for me: a fragrant sweet pea, columnar phacelia 

and I think that last is a Death Camas (lily family)!!!

And then, there's the lovely purple phacelia.

Spring comes early to Yreka

Yreka's own native endemic phlox, Phlox hirsuta, was found blooming about a month early this year at China Hill, on the northeast side of town.

Other plants flowering on this sunny day before Easter included (from top) poppies and blue gilia, silver rock cress, blue dicks and lomatium.

Showy phlox, Phlox speciosa, also makes a home on China Hill's lean serpentine soils.  Note the notched petals on this one, compared to the Yreka phlox.