Avi Kwa Ame National Monument ~ Summer Blooms Thanks to Late Spring Rains

JUNE 2025

We are pleased to report that Avi Kwa Ame National Monument and our surrounding areas received 1.22 inches of rain in early June. This is a significant amount, especially during the ongoing Southwest Megadrought, as the usual rainfall for this month is only .06 inches! We had a long, dry, winter and little rain earlier in the year, which made for a noticeable lack of the usual spring flowers, and our perennial plants, like Joshua trees and creosote, were wearing sad, drought-stricken colors that were all wrong for the season. However, everyone in the plant and animal world is noticeably cheered by our early monsoon events, and our trees and shrubs are now wearing more fashionable green hues and sending up new shoots.

Creosote is blooming and displaying its fuzzy, glowing seedheads to the setting sun, and you'll catch the fragrance of honeysuckle-scented catclaw blossoms on the wind. Hiko Canyon is playing host to sulfur and painted lady butterflies among its cliffs and springs, and if you're traveling over Nipton Pass, you'll see big, showy clumps of datura in bloom, while highway huggers like apricot mallow and brilliant marigold will wave and wink as you pass by. In the washes you may spot Anna's or Costa's hummingbirds sipping nectar from the late blooms of the desert willow, and our resident lizards, snakes, tortoises, cottontail rabbits, ground squirrels and coyotes are all out and having a good time. It's not a super-bloom, or a solution to the long-term drought, but we have had more rain in the desert, and everywhere hope is blooming.