Those who know the Granite Mountain trails for their wildflower displays and who have been disappointed in the display earlier this year should try to visit the area again. Flowering has come late to two species in the area that usually put on good shows (due perhaps to the cool spring?), brittlebush and chuparosa. Both often begin flowering as early as December and January but were substantially delayed this year. They are both in full flower now, as are many of the usual suspects - poppies and lupines are still putting on a good show, as are owl's clover and hedgehog cacti. Many little surprises await for wildflower aficionados. Wonderful show from the banana yuccas as well, especially between Granite and Cholla Mountains.

Between the increasing number of iNaturalist users and the good spring wildflower season the number of observations in the preserve has exploded this year. As of today (14 April) there are 2,859 observations posted for the calendar year. These additions are very helpful to the city and the conservancy in increasing the knowledge of where and when organisms are found, information about their phenology, among numerous other uses.

This happy situation has led to a bit of pressure on the project's curators who can only enter observations into the project one at a time. But there are several relatively painless ways that you can help:

1) When entering an observation using the app, note the Projects menu option on the Details page. If you are a member of the project, you can tap that option and select "Scottsdale's McDowell Sonoran Preserve" from your project list.

2) When entering bulk observations through the web site, check off all the observations you want to add and select the "Add to project" option. Then select "Scottsdale's McDowell Sonoran Preserve" from the list presented.

3) You can become a project curator. If you do, a list of Project Curator Tools is open to you on the main project page. From that list, select "Find Suitable Observations". A list of observations opens from which you can assess likely candidates.

If you wish to try your hand a curating, leave a comment below or send a message to @stevejones through iNaturalist and I will add your name to the exclusive list alongside other esteemed members such as...uh, well, right now it's only me. There is a short list of instruction project curators should follow:

-Add no observation entered before the date you become a curator. There's a list of past unsuitable observations numbering about 350 at the moment.
-Add only complete observations - those lacking a photo or accurate date should be excluded.

You do not need to identify the organism, you can add it to the project whether you know what it is or not. If you're feeling especially ambitious you can tick off some Annotations at the right as well. Those should be fairly self-explanatory.

Another spring like the last one, with late germinating rains (December), but good following rains. Primary production is high; the numbers and size of plants are high. Spring temperatures have been cool; some flowering times have been affected. Brittlebush is usually an early-flowering shrub, but in the preserve and surrounds the bloom is only just beginning. Second wet spring in a row means the spring ephemeral seed bank will likely be substantially restocked this season.

After a relatively dry autumn, good germinating rains occurred in December; a bit late for an ideal spring wildflower season, but nonetheless holding some promise for a good one, presuming following rains occur through March.

In contrast to Spring 2018, this season was off to an early start after the record rainfall in October 2018. Those rains combined with still-warm temperatures to induce early germination in many winter-spring ephemerals, leading to what I began to call, "Springime in December." Poppies, phacelias and other borages, mustards, plantains, and some non-native grasses sprang up earlier than usual. Among perennials, two wolfberry species (L. exsertum and L. andersonii) both flowered and set fruit in late fall instead of their usual spring appearance. The fact that they didn't flower the previous dry spring leads me to wonder whether they were flowering "late" or "early". If they flower again in March, we'll know it was "late". [ETA: they didn't flower again in March, thus "early"]

The rains also induced the germination of millions of triangle-leaf bursage, canyon bursage and brittlebush seedlings. Almost every adult plant is surrounded by dozens of seedlings. Also, some spring ephemerals that were rare or uncommon in the previous 8 years or more turned out in profusion - notably purple-stem phacelia and Emory's rock-daisy, both of which are prolific right now along the southern leg of the Gateway Loop.

If you've noticed other unusual events such as these, please add a note in the comments.

A few frosty nights in early January nipped back some of the exuberant growth in brittlebush, goldeneye, canyon bursage and trixis, but chances of another frost are becoming slim.

Taken for all in all, it should be an early and fairly prolific spring flowering season this year. It's already underway.

It's as dry as I've known it to be in 32 years of living in northeastern Maricopa County. Not necessarily the driest year - there have been others as dry. It's quite a contrast from spring 2017 - rainfall was near normal last year and the wildflower show was very good. This year? Well, all the usual suspects are showing up, though many fewer plants, and those substantially smaller. It's a bonsai wildflower spring. There are tricks to finding the few, small plants. Look for areas where water concentrates. Low spots, washes, and in the northern preserve especially, along the granitic boulders. Rain falling on the boulders runs off and collects at the boundary between boulder and soil. So check the boulders along trails, especially on the northern side. You'll find most of the usual suspects, you just have to look closely.

Animal numbers are down as well. Butterflies and other insects are reduced in number. Mammals and herps are less impacted and due to sparse vegetation may be easier to see. Birds the same - numbers may be lower, but individuals easier to see. And photograph. Migratory birds are coming through; the Brewer's Sparrows are back, chittering and chatting incessantly amongst themselves as they move through the preserve feeding.

In addition, the city has opened up many new trails in the northern preserve. And the work is not done yet. Planning for more trails is under way. A new temporary trailhead has opened at Pima and Dynamite, providing access to the northwestern preserve and a permanent trailhead will open there next year.

Yes, it's a dry spring. But there is plenty to do and to see and to learn. Consider the dryness a challenge rather than a source of discouragement.

The team of admins running iNaturalist made recent changes to the layouts of three pages (Dashboard, Profile and Identify Observations). More importantly, it has revamped the Add Observations routine. It is much simpler now to add observations from your computer, especially when adding multiple observations. You may drag-and-drop or import photos directly. Once they are uploaded, the system will search the photos' metadata for species name, description, location, and tags, if you have added those. Then you can edit the observations individually, in groups, or as a whole. You can also combine multiple photos (of the same critter, mind you) into a single observation.

This new routine is so simple and painless that I am now going through old photos and uploading them. (Here is a description of the workflow I use.)

There have been no changes to the app.

Greetings to the new members who more than doubled the MSP project membership today! You may have noticed that today's presentation drifted from its script a bit. Nice use of the passive-evasive device, eh? I messed up. Not too badly, but I did leave out a detail or two. Or maybe twelve, I haven't finished counting.

The major blunder was neglecting to mention that when adding an observation to the MSP project, you will be prompted to add a trail name to the observation. This is optional, so if you don't know the name of the trail, leave it blank. If you just don't feel like adding it, fine. Be that way.

I also neglected to mention the resources available by selecting "Help" at the bottom of this page. You'll find more help there than you got from me today.

If you have questions about iNaturalist or the MSP project, don't hesitate to send a message to stevejones. (Click on the link. Select "Message" next to my username.) That one is free. Charges may apply depending on the silliness of the question.