Posts in Category: California
Phainopepla
Phainopepla. Palm Canyon, Anza Borrego Desert State Park, CA
The Phainopepla is a silky flycatcher, the only representative of its Central American family to reach the US. It is a desert dweller and is frequently seen around any water source in its arid habitat. This specimen, a male, was along the running part of the stream in Palm Canyon, up toward the Palm Oasis, in Anza Borrego Desert State Park in Borrego Springs California. They feed on insects and Mistletoe berries. Interestingly, according to the wiki, they peal the berries and digest the skins separately from the meat…so they extract maximum nutrition from the fruit. They are the only birds known to practice this trick. Unlike most flycatchers, they are also mimics, with a repertoire of half-a dozen or more other birds calls.
They are certainly striking birds, with their silky, glossy, jet black feathers, jaunty crest, and bright red eye. Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 100 @ f6/5. Processed in Lightroom.
Master Gardner in the Desert. Happy Sunday
Di Giorgio Road, Borrego Springs CA
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light.” Jesus.
This is a “chance” arrangement of wildflowers from the end of Di Giorgio Road in Borrego Springs, California…part of my Desert in Bloom series from my visit to the Anzo Borrego Desert last week. If you believe in chance, which I don’t. 🙂 I see the hand of the Master Gardner here, in this arrangement of Desert Lily, California Evening Primrose, Sand Verbina, and Common Cryptantha (I think it is Common but it could be one of the others). All I had to do was see it, and put a frame around it. And even if you don’t believe in a Master Gardener who makes arrangements in the desert where they may or may not be seen and appreciated, there is a little bit of Master Gardner just in seeing, framing, and sharing the arrangement when found. Or that’s what I think. 🙂
The generous eye is active…proactive…constantly looking for, and therefore seeing, God in the world. God working beauty. God working love. God working good. God working blessing. God working protection. God working. Here in the desert, God works beauty, as the Master Gardener. In my drive over the mountains in a sudden snowstorm to get to the desert, God certainly worked protection. Both were a blessing…totally undeserved…total grace. Just God being God. That is what the generous eye sees. I remember the feeling of finding this arrangement of wildflowers in the desert. I was delighted! The light within me leapt up. I thought “What a God!” and gave thanks…thanks for the work, thanks for the seeing, and thanks for the opportunity to share. It was a moment of pure generosity. Happy Sunday!
Nikon P610 at 115mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 100 @ f5. Processed in Lightroom.
Desert Bighorn Sheep Browsing
Desert Bighorn Sheep, Palm Canyon, Anzo Borrego Desert State Park, CA
During my encounter with Desert Bighorn Sheep in Palm Canyon at Anzo Borrego Desert State Park in California, the sheep were actively browsing the whole time I watched them…and that is using the word “browse” in its original sense 🙂 They seemed to be stripping fresh leaves, new shoots, and maybe even flowers from the desert bushes. Here you have Indigo Bush (purple) and Creosote Bush (yellow). Note the delicate technique of closing the lips and teeth loosely around the stem and drawing the head back to strip the good stuff! It takes a lot of tiny leaves and shoots to fill the belly of a Bighorn Sheep…which is undoubtedly why they were so intent on their browse.
Nikon P900 at various focal lengths and exposures. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.
Rock Wren Singing!
Rock Wren, Palm Canyon, Anzo Borrego Desert State Park, Borrego Springs, CA
I heard both Canyon and Rock Wren singing in Palm Canyon in Anzo Borrego Desert State Park when I hiked it on Tuesday of this week, but only the Rock Wren showed itself. This has to be a classic image of Rock Wren…sitting on fair sized bolder (rock) and singing loud enough to echo off the canyon walls. Such a perky bird…as are all wrens.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/800th @ ISO 100 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Desert Lily, Anzo Borrego
Desert Lily, Anzo Borrego Desert, Borrego Springs CA
It is a year for Desert Lilies in the Anzo Borrego Desert. The Desert Lily, according to my sources, is not a Lily at all…though it certainly looks like one…but is more closely related to the Agave. It does not bloom every year. The bulbs are up to 2 feet underground and it takes a deep soaking rain, or a series of deep soaking rains, to trigger growth and bloom. This year the conditions must have been just right because they are locally abundant at the end of De Giorgio Road in Borrego Springs and up Henderson Canyon toward the mountains on the west. This is an unusually tall specimen. Most bloom when the plant is only inches tall, so the flowers are practically on the ground. Interestingly most of the Lilies on Di Giorgio Road were tall, and most of the Lilies off the western extension of Henderson Canyon were short. ?? You see lots of Sand Verbina and California Evening Primrose in the background, as well as rain moving in the Laguna Mountains.
Sony HX90V. 1/320th @ ISO 80 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.
Close encounter with Desert Bighorn Sheep
Desert Bighorn Sheep, Palm Canyon Trail, Anzo Borrego Desert State Park, CA
My Year Poem from yesterday concerned encounters with Desert Bighorn Sheep in Anzo Borrego Desert State Park’s popular Palm Canyon. Yesterday was my third hike up the canyon to the Palm Oasis, the first about 6 years ago, and then last year and this. Twice now, on my first hike, and then again yesterday, just where the stream begins to run in its bed, where the Alternate Trail branches off, I have encountered groups of Desert Bighorn Sheep feeding on their way back up from drinking at the stream. The first time was magical as I was alone, and suddenly found myself surrounded by Bighorns. Yesterday I followed a group of tourist/photographers up the Alternate Trail because the Sheep had been seen there from across the canyon on the main trail. There were a dozen of us and three Sheep, but it was still just as magical…just in a different way. Desert Bighorns, at least in Palm Canyon where they encounter people most days, pay little attention to the tourists. They just go about their life-long business of finding enough water and green growth to keep body and soul together in their harsh habitat. This well worn warrior, a ram, shows the effects of both his struggle to survive and his struggle to maintain his harem. Those horns have seen many a battle over breeding rights.
Nikon P900 at 1400mm equivalent field of view. 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f7.1. Processed in Lightroom.
And here is the poem (with apologies to Emily Dickinson).
Who doesn’t hope for
Desert Bighorn Sheep
when hiking Palm Canyon
(in Anzo Borrego State Park)?
A single encounter is addictive.
Once I stood surrounded
as 15 sheep fed within
20 feet of me, and turned
with that pickling on the
back of my neck feeling to see
one on a bolder right above
me, looking down my collar…
And today… a ram, a ewe,
and maybe a yearling,
went about their business
oblivious to the dozen
would-be photographers
(DSLRs with kit zooms
and even a few phones)
clicking away on the trail
above them…close, so
close I could see the dust
in their coats…so close
you could hear their teeth
tear at the fresh shoots that
sprouted after yesterday’s rain.
I have hiked Palm Canyon
many times and not seen
them…but that does not
stop me hoping every time.
Hope is a thing with horns.
Anzo Borrego in Bloom
Henderson Canyon Road, Borrego Springs CA
The bloom in Death Valley is a “once in a decade” bloom this year, but Death Valley is just too far from San Diego and the San Diego Birding Festival for me to make the trip. Anzo Borrego Desert, on the other hand is just 2 hours over the mountains. I put an extra day in my trip just in case the bloom was good. Late in the week, considering rain on Sunday and Monday, I reserved a room at the Borrego Springs Resort and Spa, checked out of my hotel in San Diego a day early, and drove from San Diego to Borrego Springs through a heavy snowstorm in the high country around Julian, inching around hairpin turns. But the reward was worth it. There is not a desert wide bloom…nothing like Death Valley…but there are pockets of very impressive wildflowers. This is mostly Desert Sunflower along the valley end of Henderson Canyon Road…one of the faithful spots of wildflower production most years when there are any. You can see the storms still in the mountains…they swept out and over the valley about once every two hours all day, and I did some of my photography from under an umbrella, but all it all it was an excellent day. I will post a gallery of individual wildflower shots when I get home to Maine later this week.
Nikon P610 in Landscape mode at 125mm equivalent field of view. 1/1000th @ ISO 100 @ f5. Processed in Lightroom.
Pelican Ponders the Prospects
Brown Pelican, La Joya California
I described La Joya Cove, Scripps Park and the Children’s Pool in La Joya California in some detail yesterday. One of the attractions of the area is the large colony of nesting Brown Pelicans. They are always in full breeding plumage when I visit in early March, and for a big bird, they are strikingly colorful. This bird was resting with a group of 15 or so, on a rock ledge above the Children’s Pool. He has, I think, a very “pondering” air, as though the weight of the universe rests on his hunched shoulders. Maybe it does. 🙂
Nikon P900 at 400mm equivalent (the birds are close!). 1/1000th @ ISO 100 @ f5. Processed in Lightroom.
Brants in breeding posture. Happy Sunday!
Brant’s Cormorant, La Joya California.
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light.” Jesus
My friend Rich and I, being in San Diego for the San Diego Birding Festival, drove the short way up to La Joya cove, Scripps Park, and the Children’s Pool yesterday before work. I am always amazed that this little strip of park along the clifftops is there, right in the heart of urban, touristy, La Joya California. And more than just being there, it is home to a large colony of Brown Pelicans, always in full breeding plumage when I visit in March, both Brant’s and Neotropic Cormorants (also in breeding plumage), a colony of Sea Lions at the north end and a pupping beach and nursery for Harbor Seals at the other end…not to mention California and Heermann’s Gulls, Black Turnstones, Song Sparrows, Anna’s Hummingbirds, thousands of Ground Squirrels, and assorted other birds and wildlife…and all of this in less than a mile of protected cliffs and beaches. Yesterday the sea was wild with a coming storm. The waves were huge with big breakers and water fountaining high into the air when they hit the cliff. That simply added to the sense of wilderness surrounded by city.
I admire the generosity of eye, and of spirit…the light within those who have struggled to keep this bit of wilderness right there in the heart of the city. There is a lot of that around San Diego, and, for me, that adds to the undeniable attraction of the place. Generosity is in the air, and there is a feeling of blessing over all. If God has special places, then I can believe that the coast of southern California is one of them.
What we have here in the image is a breeding plumage Brant’s Cormorant, displaying over his, as yet meager, pile of nest materials. What he lacks in material possessions, he attempts to make up in flash and style. Whatever it takes to attract a mate. It would take a very stingy eye not to see the beauty, and the humor, in a bird like this…doing its thing. Or that is what I think. No light at all in someone who can not see and value a Brant’s Cormorant in full breeding display. 🙂
Happy Sunday!
Brown Pelicans in Fligh
Brown Pelicans. The Tide Pools, Cabrillo National Monument, San Diego CA
It was a beautiful day at Point Loma and Cabrillo National Monument yesterday. Relatively clear with enough clouds in the sky for drama. Cabrillo is not a birding hotspot. There is nothing there you can not see elsewhere in San Diego, but I always spend a morning there when I visit. The landscape and the views are simply too compelling to miss. These Brown Pelicans were soaring along the updraft over the loess cliffs above the tide pools at the foot of Point Loma. Glorious!
Nikon P900 at 260mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/400th @ ISO 100 @ f7.1. Processed in Lightroom.