Flower Flyover

The bluebonnet crop around our little town of Horseshoe Bay is absolutely phenomenal this year. Most of the long-timers here say it’s the best showing in at least a decade. It’s probably due to the record-breaking rainfall we experienced last fall, plus a relatively warm winter.

I’ve now learned that the “warm winter” is actually a non-factor. Bluebonnets contain a sort of natural anti-freeze and thus aren’t affected much by cold and frosty weather. Check out this bluebonnet FAQ over at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center for more interesting tidbits about the state flower of Texas.

Whatever the cause, we’re seeing bluebonnets in places we’ve never before spotted them, and in quantities large enough to make a description of a “sea of flowers” not much of an exaggeration.

Photos don’t really do them justice, but I took a shot at seeing if a video might come close. I launched my little DJI Spark drone a couple of weeks ago near the entrance to our neighborhood and took about fifteen minutes of hi-def movies of the flowers we see every day around here. 

I decided to do something a little different, however. Instead of a lot of “bird’s eye” perspective, I kept the drone as low to the ground as the obstacle avoidance firmware would allow, thereby capturing more of a “flower’s eye” view (Ed: Flowers don’t have eyes. Me: Oh, yeah. Then how do you explain black-eyed susans?)

I hope you find the following video relaxing to watch. Note that it was a rather breezy day and the drone experienced a little buffeting, hence some of the occasional jerkiness of the images. The rest of the jerkiness is due to pilot incompetence.