Anza Borrego – Desert Interlude

Ocotillo

 

Feather Duster

 

We’ve been down in the Mohave Desert for over a week just soaking up the sun and warmth.  We’ve even put up the awning and spend time in our “extra room.” 

After leaving Santa Barbarfa we visited a college friend of mine, Joe Marasco and his wife Sue, in Valencia.  Joe took us on a tour of the area, including a hydrologic shrine – the site of the St. Francis dam collapse in thge 1920′s, one of the first of Californias water disasters.  After a goood visit we headed down to Joshua Tree NP, but the flowers weren’t blooming there yet, so we continued down to Borrego Springs.  It’s been mainly birds and flowere down here.  Despite the winter rains, it’s been an off year for flowers due to three days of frost in March.  There’s still lots of variety, but no big concentrations.  Enough to keep me busy though.

While we were here we had our first Famous Photographer sightings of the trip.  Sandy Nykerk and her husband Kieth were here for a week, and Steve Sherman was in for a couple days.  It was fun shooting with them, especially since we’re all more used to the snows of Yellowstone this time of year.  (Hope you guys are keeping warm up there)

Yesterday Alice and I circumnavigated the Salton Sea – where the beaches are dead fish bones and the Wildlife Refuge is named for Sonny (I Got You, Babe) Bono.  That ought to sum it up.  The Sea is another of Californias water disasters, only this one is ongoing.  I’ve been to a lot of dead-end places, but none seem so close to tipping over the edge as this one.  It’s saving grace it that it’s now providing a lot of wetland habitat for birds (when avian botulism isn’t killing them) thats been lost elsewhere in California.  I barely was able to keep Alice from investing in a waterfront lot in Bombay Beach…

It’s back to Joshua Tree tomorrow, then the Poppy Preserve, the the Channel Islands and back up the coast.  Got to go drag Alice out of the pool now.

Black-capped gnatcatcher

 

Century plant

 

California quail

 

Brittlebrush and Fan Palm

 

Barrel Cactus - Mohave Desert

 

Cactus wren

 

Costa's hummingbird

Desert cottontail