Swarm and Splendor

Posted on May 22, 2004 in Hikes and Trails Insects The Orange

We went for a whopper of a hike today. Starting at 2 in the afternoon, we climbed up the Harding Truck Trail to Laurel Spring. Blue clouds shaded us in the early afternoon, but just before 4, the sky burst open and we were treated to blue skies and the variegated colors of the chaparral. Wildflowers mobbed the trail. Swallowtails, California Sisters, and skippers fluttered about. We could clearly make out Vulture Crags on an opposite ridge and, faintly, Catalina Island.

The weird wildlife encounter of the day was a swarm of bees which covered an area the width of a basketball in the middle of the road. There was no rhyme or reason that we could see to the blob’s presence. Three stones bumped up in the midst of the female slave force. The road was scraped bare and it wasn’t the best place for wildflowers either. I got close enough to take a photograph.

It never moved. We saw it on our ascent and again when we came down just before sunset. A few soldiers drove us away during the warmer afternoon. When we came back, I walked up to within five feet of it. The bees crawled all over themselves as if they were following an unseen mobius path. Strays flew up and joined the cluster. They didn’t bother us.

Other than hummingbirds sucking at the monkeyflowers, a few cliff swallows at dusk, and towhees trying to lead us away from their nests, the only other wildlife sign we saw were a few coyote and mountain lion tracks in the hardened mud.