Category Archive

Desert Wildflowers from Monday night, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

Update:  Here are the most recent wildflower conditions along with hotspots.

I was gone for a few days attending a couple different conferences – when I returned, I was surprised to see how many of the fields near our campground were coming alive with pink sand verbena  I couldn’t wait to see what that meant for Coyote Canyon, which had been the best area around, especially since the temps had cooled, and a bit more rain fell Sunday night.

Well I was shocked when I arrived at Coyote Canyon to find most the wildflowers were gone!  I was driving along in disbelief when Janine noticed the dirt road ahead of us almost appeared to be moving.  At closer look, we could see hundreds of caterpillars crawling around in every direction!  It appears they have wiped out the wildflowers in this area.

Fortunately, as we checked around some other areas that are just coming into bloom, areas like Borrego Palm Canyon, so far haven’t been effected by the caterpillars.  The last time we were in Borrego Palm Canyon, it was looking nice, I’ll be back there soon for an update.

There is another beneficiary to all the caterpillars, and that is the Swainson’s Hawk.  As the “Hawk Guy” Hal Cohen has explained it,  the large concentrations of hawks that show up here on migration this time of year would quickly wipe out the rodent / rabbit / squirrel  population if they were to feed on such animals.  On migration, caterpillars is there food of choice.  So what might not be good for some of the wildflowers, is certainly good for the hawk.

American-Coot, Borrego Springs, California.

I seem to be photographing a lot of birds on this trip.  That is about to change to desert wildflowers – a little more rain and finally some cooling should help!

American wigeon

An American wigeon last night in Borrego Springs, California.  Off this morning to attend the Friday sessions of the North American Nature Photographers Summit – maybe I’ll see some of you there?

Anna’s Hummingbird.

A male Anna’s Hummingbird in our campsite yesterday.  They also have a nest in our campsite, but this guy wouldn’t know anything about that – the female builds the nest, raises, feeds and cares for the young.

Canon 5D III, Canon 100-400 II, at 400 iso, 1/1250 at f/5.6, iso 1250.  Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.  Backlit by the sun, front lit by light reflecting off RV window.

White-crowned-Sparrow

Think I just met the world’s smartest White-crowned Sparrow!

We had a red ant colony at our last campsite, and as you probably know, these little guys are impressive to watch as they are able to haul relatively large loads of food on their backs, and carry them long distances back to their holes.  Well one particular White-crowned Sparrow figured this out and would just stand near the opening to the colony and pick the bits of food off the backs of the unsuspecting ants!  He did it over and over.  Sometimes it would get the ant too, they most not taste too good as the sparrow would quickly spit it out, and then pick up just the piece of food.

It was entertaining to watch, and fascinating to see such a small animal develop a learned behavior.  Unfortunately I didn’t capture any images of the interaction, this is a White-crowned Sparrow in camp last night.

Coyote Canyon, February 13, 2015.

Update:  Here are the latest conditions for Anza-Borrego wildflowers along with the latest hot spots.

A steady dose of 80 degree temps is really speeding up the wildflower bloom.  A week earlier, this was just a bunch of green plants.  Now, there is a fair amount of blooming Sand Verbena, along with a number of other species.  So far, it looks to be a pretty good year for Sand Verbena and Desert Lily, and maybe not as good for other photographer favorites like Desert Gold and Brittlebush, although it is still early.