CraigBILL

I love the Texas Hill Country in the Spring! This is a great time to see the Texas State Flower, the Bluebonnet, in all it’s glory. And, if that isn’t enough, over 5,000 varieties of wild flowers cover the rolling hills of the central Texas Hill Country and burst into bloom. And every Spring flowering event is different depending on factors such as winter precipitation, temperatures and a little bit of mystery. This years bluebonnets completely carpet areas that in the next year were lacking. You just have to chase them down.

Every imaginable color invades these Texas prairies, and not all colors at the same time. Bluebonnets come first over the red Indian Paintbrush flowers in a "timing" dance that is highly complex and orchestrated. This overlapping of growth cycles provide for an amazing competitive biodiversity. Wildflowers will bloom throughout the growing season, attracting specific butterflies, birds, and even establish the diverse and short-lived ecosystem habitats necessary for survival of species of insects, flora and fauna (I love being a biologist!).

By the time I found this ultra dense bluebonnet group on the side of a hill, a heavy low storm was rolling in - complete with lightning! So I set up my camera "lightning rod tripod" and began snapping away. Timing of the shot was critical due to the shafts of light breaking through the clouds (causing wildly shifting lighting conditions) and small bursts of wind that would shake the flowers (causing them to blur on in certain areas of the photographs). I returned a couple weeks later to find all the bluebonnets gone!