The headlight used by Janine to explore a mud cave in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California is just one of many gift suggestions.

Last year I did a post on Christmas gift suggestions for the photographer.  I thought about writing a new one for this year, but realized I would be recommending the same items and that is would be easier to just link and remind everyone of last years blog post.

Well, there is one change I would make to last years recommendation and that is for my Anza-Borrego photo workshop which is no longer an option as it sold out some time ago.  But, I do have a little bit of room in one of my two Alaska bear photo tours – now that would be the ultimate Christmas gift!

An un-named cactus forest, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

Well I have lots of new Hawaii photos to share, but realized I better mention my Anza-Borrego photography workshop before it is too late.  I know some people follow this blog to keep up on news items like photography workshops, and I couldn’t have this one fill before I even mentioned it here, so that is why I’m bring it up now.

I received my approval  and permits from California State Parks just before I left on this trip, and we are already down to just 2 spots remaining for the weekend workshop.  I’m limiting the total number to just 5 participants, and this winter I believe I will only do one weekend – in the past I have done two.  This beautiful garden off an un-marked road will be one of many places we will visit during the workshop.  To read more go to:  Anza-Borrego Photo Workshop / Tour.

Monday, I will be back to posting Hawaii photos!

Wildflowers and Indian Head mountain at sunrise, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

We have been working hard to edit, key-word and process the photos and videos from our winter / spring trip.  I would like to have this material completely processed so that I will have the time to hit the beautiful Alaska summer hard!  It is such a wonderful time of year here.

So in the mean time, I thought I would share a few new photos from this winter, images I hadn’t posted here on the blog before including this one from Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

V-22-Osprey, Ocotillo Wells, California.

I have heard plenty about this unique aircraft in the news over the years, but had never seen one in action.  This winter, as we were driving to a location to photograph the burrowing Owls, we were surprised to see one of these planes fly in and land at a remote dirt airstrip near Ocotillo Wells.  It was fascinating to see an airplane take off straight up into the air!  Then, as you can see in this photo, the engines slowly began to rotate forward until they were eventually facing straight ahead like a typical aircraft, and it flew off into the distance.  It was definitely one of those unexpected events I had to stop to photograph.

An Ocotillo at sunrise in Borrego Palm Canyon, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

In the almost 5 years I have been doing this blog, I must admit, the last couple of weeks have been about as inactive as I have ever been.  It may be that way for a few more weeks until summer hits here in Alaska as I try to get caught up.

Now that I have added some more tools to my bag of tricks, it seems like there is far more work to do when I get home.  Not only do we have to keyword and process photos like we did in the past, but now I’m spending a ton of time compiling time-lapses, muxing 3D clips and overcoming frustrating new challenges like removing flicker!

Our rule of thumb has always been that we don’t take off on another trip until the previous one is completely processed – so that is what I’m working on as hard as I can – but it just doesn’t make very interesting blog fodder.

Cracked mud on a dry lake, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

Sunrise last week in Anza-Borrego – I loved the patterns in this cracked mud.

Ghost flowers, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

Some years, these beautiful, translucent wildflower can be hard to find.  This year, they are fairly numerous in Surprise Canyon.  Surprise Canyon has a wide array of wildflowers in it this year.

Beavertail cactus, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

It is interesting – since we arrived in Anza-Borrego, for exercise, we have been running in Coyote Canyon.  Until Friday, I hadn’t seen any sign of blooming cactus.  I skipped the area this past weekend, but went back Monday evening and lo and behold, there were numerous blooming cactus!  Things can change fast!

Beavertail cactus flower.

Gerry getting down and dirty Saturday night.

I had another fun workshop last weekend with a wonderful, passionate group of photographers.  It was nice to have nearly perfect weather – warm, no wind, and even a few clouds, made for a great weekend!

Tin, Cynthia, Ron, Susan, me and Gerry in Anza-Borrego.

Desert bighorn, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

My alarm went off at its usual pre-sunrise time of 5:20 this morning.  As a non-morning person, I  gotta admit I’m looking forward to daylight savings time.  Anyway, I headed out the door a few minutes later and saw that the sky was full of clouds – clouds that hadn’t been in the forecast.  So, I make a last minute decision to head to a more distant location -  a place  better situated for the sunrise.  Well, I ended up watching a spectacular sunrise through the windshield instead of the viewfinder. 

Speaking of clouds – a few moved in briefly on Wednesday afternoon.  Cloudy weather provides the perfect defused light for wildlife, so I headed to Borrego Palm Canyon in search of desert bighorn.  I spotted two small rams not too high up on the hillside and decided to slowly climb up to them.  Over time, I eventually got close to the one you see pictured here.  I decided to just sit there and take in the wonderful opportunity of being so close to such a magnificent, rare animal.   After a bit of time he eventually laid his head down and closed his eyes!  Talk about trust.

I also found the band of ewes with new born lambs which I have been keeping an eye on.  I hoped they would come down for a drink.  It seemed like they were starting to come down the busy trail area where I have seem them before, but then they too decided to rest.  I watched and waited until dark, but they never did come down, but it was still a wonderful day in the desert!

Barrel cactus, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

I have had a few inquires on the wildflower conditions here – I noticed it has been a couple of weeks since my last update, and with the weekend approaching, now seems like a perfect time.

I personally tend to group the wildflowers by where they grow, either in rocky terrain, or in the sandy areas.  I imagine the wildflower experts would roll their eyes to such a simple classification, but it makes it easier for me. 

That said, this has been a good year for the wildflowers that grow in the rockier  regions – things like brittle bush and chuparosa are looking good.  This has been where I have been spending much of my time – pretty much along the base of the mountains, and in the canyons leading into the mountains all have a nice variety of color, including some a few early bloom cactus.

Probably the best area in the park still has to be Borrego Palm Canyon.  Thanks to recent rains, the stream now flows all the way down to the campground, and there is a wide variety of wildflowers.  Plus, the sheep have been seen in there regularly – yesterday I saw about a dozen including the same band of newborn ewes that I spotted a couple of weeks ago!

Now the sandy ares are a different story, and have only improved a little from two weeks ago.  The local newspaper quoted local park official who claimed this has been one of the “weirdest” years they have ever seen – I think that is true for much of the nation.  In January they had temperatures pushing 90, but then had a cold spell where it dropped to 24.  Local “experts” were partly blaming the freeze on the poor showing.  I was skeptical at first, but after doing a bit of hiking, I would now tend to agree.  I have found numerous dried up “dead” wildflowers like verbena that do appear to have been killed by something, possibly freezing.  And clearly the widespread sahara mustard isn’t helping any.

Two weeks ago, I couldn’t find any verbena or desert gold, but now, there does seem to be a second round of flowers – possibly ones that hadn’t sprouted before the freeze.  On my daily exercise run – usually in Coyote Canyon, I’m now seeing numerous patches of verbena, dune primrose and desert gold in places that didn’t have any two weeks ago.  Now these are very small patches unusable as a foreground in a landscape image, but adequate if you wanted to do wildflower closeups with a macro lens.

According to the local newspaper – Anza-Borrego naturalists did think this would be a very good year for cactus wildflowers and I would agree – I’m seeing lot of cactus loaded with buds just waiting to bloom.  The cactus tend to bloom later and should be a lot better in a couple of weeks.  As far as the wildflowers go, I would say this is about peak – some areas of Borrgo Palm Canyon area already declining.  So if you are thinking of a visit, I would say come this weekend, or wait for the cactus bloom.

Janine in a mud cave, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

Yesterday we went exploring some mud caves.  It is believed that Anza-Borrego may have the largest mud caves in the world.  According to the book Anza-Borrego Desert Region
,  (a great resource by the way), there are at least 22 known caves.  The largest caves are over 1,000 feet long with rooms up to 80 feet high and 30 feet wide.  Some of the caves like this one have dry waterfalls.  Researcher Dwight Carey notes that subterranean streams are buried at depths of up to 180 feet.  Since the erosion rate is low, these caves may be thousands of years old!

It is crazy to think there are subterranean streams in such a dry location!

We explored a couple of caves.  The first one just kept going and going, turn after turn – we finally chickened out before ever reaching the end – it is spooky in there!

The one in the photo was my favorite, not only because of the huge chamber created by the dry waterfall, but because it had a sky light making it a bit easier to photograph.

Indian Head, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

Much like Mt Alice back in Seward, Indian Head seems to find its way into many of my compositions here in Anza-Borrego, and this morning wasn’t any exception.

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Cholla and Ocotillo, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

There is a place called the Cholla Garden in Joshua Tree National Park, I think this location is even better – almost as many cholla, but it is also full of blooming Ocotillo right now!

I photographed this last week as I was scouting for the past weekend’s workshop.  I forgot to take a photo of the workshop participants, but we had a great time!  It stopped raining right before the workshop began, and we had a nice variety of clouds and weather the rest of the day, followed with nice weather on Sunday.  One of the unexpected benefits of leading tours and workshops is the opportunity to meet really nice, very interesting people, and last weekend was no exception!

Yellow-Throat-Monkeyflower, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

I have found a beautiful, thick patch of this colorful wildflower recently.  Here I decided to focus on an individual plant – in the future, I think I will try to include the entire patch.

Swainson's Hawk, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

For many people, Anza-Borrego is famous for its desert wildflower bloom which in wet years can be amazing.  But, when a birder thinks of Anza-Borrego, they probably think of the Swainson’s Hawk migration that takes place this time each year.  On a record day, more then 1,000 hawks stopped in the valley where the town of Borrego Springs is located to roost for the night.  I personally have seen groups as large as a 100, with dozens roosting in the trees near our camp.  The stay the night, and then move on the next morning.  Last year over 3,000 hawks migrated through this area.

Beginning on February 15, volunteers begin a local hawk watch where they count the migrating hawks – the peak of the migration is in March.  You can see the hawk watchers with their spotting scopes on top of a large mound of dirt along De Giorgio Road north of Big Horn Road, very near to where this photo was taken.

Chuparosa, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

This was at sunrise less then an hour ago.  I was hoping for a bit more on an interesting sky, so I likely will return to this location again. Sounds like we might have some clouds and interesting weather coming this weekend.

Speaking of this weekend – I do have a couple spots left for my Anza-Borrego workshop.  The second weekend is sold out, but with lots of wildflowers and interesting weather on the way – this could be a good one!

Brittlebush, Anza-Borrego State Park, California.

I am long over due for a promised wildflower update for Anza-Borrego.  I have gotten a little carried away with the Desert Bighorns – yesterday we saw some newborn lambs!  I’ll share those next week.

I would say, by in large it is turning out to be a pretty good wildflower year, with some big hits and misses.  Despite less rain, the flowers are looking better then last year probably in large part to the more seasonable temperatures – last year was much colder.  There is a good chance this area might receive more then a half of inch of rain this weekend – it that happens, it could really be a great year!

I’ll start with the misses – the biggest one is the famous fields along Henderson Canyon Road.  Historically, this area has been very colorful, and its popularity was helped thanks to its location along a paved road.  Last year, Sahara Mustard moved into this area in a big way.  This year, there isn’t much in the way of new Mustard growth except along the side of the road where is was freshly graded clear last year, but there aren’t any wildflowers either.  It is just large fields of standing dead Sahara Mustard.

Now the hits.  The closer you get to the mountains, the better the wildflowers.  That area appeared to receive more rain Wednesday, and probably will receive more this weekend.  Glorieta Canyon is looking nice, especially with the colorful red chuparosa.  There is a nice variety of flowers up Coyote Canyon – not thick fields, but a a range of  colors that includes many of the ocotillo.  But, the best place has to be Borrego Palm Canyon – not only lots of wildflowers, but I have seen sheep on every visit so far.  Borrego Palm Canyon has a lot of brittlebush, chuparosa, ocotillo along with many other blooming wildflowers.  I think the surrounding areas will be improving this week, especially with the forecasted rain, but if you are hitting Anza-Borrego this weekend, Borrego Palm Canyon is your best bet right now.

I’ll provide more updates as thing change next week, and as I scout for my upcoming Anza-Borrego photography workshops.

Another Peninsular Bighorn Sheep from Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

Here is another photo from Monday’s hike in Borrego Palm Canyon.

Peninsular Bighorn Sheep rams, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

The population of this subspecies of Desert Bighorn is estimated by some at less then 300, so it was a real treat to spend time with 9 rams yesterday afternoon!  This was in Borrego Palm Canyon.