Search This Blog

Flora and Fauna Zion National Park

Posted
Female sideblotch lizardThe term "flora and fauna" is a scientific term that refers to the plants and wildlife of a specific region or time. So while hiking Angel's Landing in Zion National Park recently, I was not only walking past red rocks and vertigo-inducing drop-offs, but was surrounded by the flora and fauna of Zion: its plants, spring flowers, and some its wildlife.

It was the early part of May when we visited, so the spring flowers were out in full-force. In terms of wildlife, we got to see a couple of different lizard species and a wasp, but not much more in the way of creepy-crawlies.

I bought a copy of "Wildflowers of Zion National Park" by Dr. Stanley L. Welsh at the park visitor center and used the book to identify most of the flowers in my photo collection. In terms of the lizards and the wasp, I would like to thank three kind members of the "ID Please" group at Flickr: Mr & Mrs Apteryx australis, Patrick Alexander, and James Christensen. (By the way, "apteryx australis" is the scientific name for the kiwi bird which makes it kind of cute that someone who uses that "handle" at Flickr should help me out, me being a "Kiwi" and all that!

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy the photos. I really enjoyed preparing them as some of the flowers are spectacularly beautiful, which is all the more amazing when you think of the hostile environment in which they grow. Oh, and after your view the slide show, be sure to check out the video below that I put together of just some of the flowers in the collection. Post a comment and let me know what you think.

Photo Collection of the Flora and Fauna Zion National Park

Slideshow Flora and Fauna Zion National Park

New: See video version of some of the wildflower photos


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Samoan Youth

Posted
This young man was preparing with his friends for his moment of fame on the stage at the Samoan Village at the Polynesian dance festival called Pasifika in Auckland in March this year. Samoan Youth Canon EOS 20D 1/30sec at f/20 ISO 200 Canon 70-300mm lens at 300mm More photographs from the same Pasifika Festival day can be found in my new post, Faces of Pasifika 2007 — A Day at Auckland's Pacific Festival .
Image

Cool Granny Has Taken Up Flying — The Little Old Lady Collection Grows Again

Posted
Cool Granny in Her Biplane — © John Corney 2026 Our cool granny is back, and she has done something the family has been quietly worried about for a few months now. She has taken up flying. A Brief Recap for New Readers If you're new to the series: she first appeared in a beautifully kept yellow Austin A35 on the corner of Queen Street and K Road in Auckland , waving cheerfully out the driver's window as she went past. That piece was, in its quiet way, a tribute to my own mother, who in her fifties bought her own motor scooter in Whanganui and never looked back — and to every older woman who has ever decided it was finally her turn. Then she showed up in a pink-and-yellow flame-painted monster truck, waving out the driver's window in exactly the same spirit, but with rather larger tyres. Same silver hair, same coral scarf, same oversized sunglasses. Same little red heart pa...
Image
Posted
Cool Granny in Her Austin A35 — © John Corney 2026 This one has a real backstory, and I'd like to tell it properly. An Auckland Sighting On one of my annual visits home to New Zealand, I was walking through central Auckland — at the corner of Queen Street and Karangahape Road (K Road, as everyone calls it) — when a small yellow car went past me and stopped me mid-stride. It was a beautifully kept Austin A35, one of the little British runabouts that were everywhere in New Zealand when I was growing up in the fifties and sixties. Driving it was a woman of a certain age with the confident bearing of someone who had been driving that same car, or one like it, for decades. She looked entirely at home behind the wheel. She belonged to the car and the car belonged to her, and neither of them was in any hurry to change. If you know Auckland, that particular corner will register: Queen Stree...
Image