Monthly Archives: March 2016
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.
Anna’s Hummingbird
Anna’s Hummingbird. Famosa Slough, San Diego CA
I spent my first morning in San Diego, as I generally do, at Famosa Slough, a urban wetland which is basically between my hotel and the convention center where they hold the San Diego Birding Festival…pretty much in downtown San Diego…or at least in downtown Point Lomas. It is maybe a half mile inland from the San Diego River mouth and the Pacific Ocean, in a little basin with a wide channel flowing out of it. I don’t know the history of the place, but I admire the instincts of those who fought to preserve the wetlands, against what must have been pretty intense pressure to drain and build. It is literally surrounded on all but one side by apartment buildings and condos, and the forth side is bounded by the expressway. My friend Rich came out to San Diego a day early and had already visited Famosa. He emailed to say “your hummingbird is still there.” There are actually at least 2 resident hummingbirds…or perhaps it is more accurate to say that there are two frequented perches. I have no idea if the hummingbirds I see on the those perches year after year, day after day, or moment to moment are always the same hummingbirds. One perch is frequented by Black-chinned Hummingbirds, the western cognate of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird, and the other is frequented by Anna’s Hummingbirds. Over the years I have noticed that neither species likes to sit facing the sun, so it is difficult at Famosa to get a gorget shot like the one above. Patience. Patience. And more patience. I won’t say luck, because I don’t believe in the stuff, but certainly you have to be in the right place at the right time, and the recipient of a small measure of grace. 🙂 This Anna’s Hummingbird showing the full helmet is the only full gorget shot I got yesterday, and I took a lot of pics!
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/800th @ ISO 100 @ f6.5. Processed and cropped slightly for composition in Lightroom.
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Red-bellied Woodpecker, Enchanted Forest Preserve, Titusville FL
It is not often that you get to see the red belly on a Red-bellied Woodpecker. I always figured the bird got is name because they were running out of more descriptive woodpecker names. It is there though, as you can clearly see in this photo taken at just the right angle. This shot is from Enchanted Forest Preserve in Titusville Florida, and though I have seen lots of Red-bellied Woodpeckers in the field all up the East Coast, and photographed quite a few, this is the first time I have had such a good view of the red belly.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 220 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Blue-crowned Motmot
Blue-crowned Motmot, Panacam Lodge, Honduras
This year we started our trip to Honduras with a few days at Panacam Lodge in the mountains near Lake Yojoa. The first morning there on our way to breakfast, this Blue-crowned Motmot perched on the porch rail of one of the cabins. It does not get any better than that. This is a high ISO, low light shot, but the colors are still topically intense.
Nikon P900 at 1440mm equivalent field of view. 1/60th @ ISO 800 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.