June is a good month for wildflower viewing along the Front Range urban corridor since late spring blooms mingle with those that persist through the summer. This morning, on my walk at South Platte Park, the sky-blue blossoms of common chicory and showy clumps of white prickly poppies were most conspicuous.
Other common wildflowers included yellow mats of common purslane, stalks of white hoary alyssum, yellow goat's beard, the white flower clusters of poison hemlock, the tiny white flowers of bractless cryptantha, the purple heads of bull thistle, the pink globes of showy milkweed, ragged stands of yellow mustard and the ubiquitous white flowers of common bindweed. The yellow flowers of prickly pear cacti, prickly lettuce and common mullein were beginning to appear and stands of purple-pink crown vetch spread beneath the riverside trees.
Of course, there was plenty of wildlife to see as well. Six-lined racerunners darted across my path, double-crested cormorants fished on the lakes, a female common merganser ushered her brood along a marshy shore and, most stirring of all, a large flock of American pelicans soared overhead, their broad wings catching the mid morning sun.
