Anza-Borrego

Wildflowers at sunset in Anza Borrego Desert State Park, California.  This is a few miles East of Borrego Springs on Highway S22.

For this photo, I used a 3 stop hard-edge graduated neutral density filter on a Canon tilt / shift lens.

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Desert Sand Verbena, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

The weather has warmed up here into the low 80’s this week.  We had rain in 3 of our first 8 days here, and now the warm weather seems to have jumped started the wildflowers, they are suddenly showing in many more places now.  I think the next week or two should be pretty good.

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Pumpkin Patch, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

This is such an interesting, almost lunar like place.  I waited until after sunset and the lite the pumpkins with a flash light during a 30 second exposure.  I have wanted to try this technique at this location for some time – it just seemed appropriate for some reason.

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Another Barrel Cactus from sunrise Saturday morning.

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It was actually raining fairly hard when I took this photo of barrel cactus in Anza-Borrego – I think the moisture helped with the saturation.  I plan on returning to this spot again in the weeks to come, I would love to catch it at sunrise, with blooms etc.  Captured with a Canon tilt / shift lens.

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Palm Canyon, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

We have hiked around in this wonderful canyon two days in a row – there are endless photo opportunities.  The palms have all kinds of cool patterns, but in addition to the palms, you can’t beat all the water flowing through the area right now.  There are a bunch of waterfalls just like this one – they seem so out of place in this desert environment.  There are also numerous Brittlelbush and other flowers just waiting to bloom – I think there could be further opportunities in this scenic canyon in a week or so when the flowers bloom.

Unlike last year at this time, we haven’t seen any sheep in the canyon.  Rangers say they were seeing them regularly up until about a week ago.

Update on Friday 9:00 a.m. PST:   It has been raining most of the night, and continues to come down right now – this is the second good soaking this area has received in the past week.  This should do nothing but help the wildflowers!

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Thick clouds yesterday morning gave me hope for a dramatic sunrise sky, or at least some dramatic light.  I sat in the dark trying to make out Mark and Brian through the static on the radio and waited, but the great light never developed.  The cool, dark light did seem appropriate for this Agave which I did photograph.

That’s ok, because I had planned for days for last nights eclipse.  I scouted many places – my first choice was the Pumpkin Patch with the pumpkins lite by flash light – that seemed cool, almost lunar like.  I had the time and direction recorded thanks to my GPS and a compass.  I had even tracked the moon arch through my view finder to see what focal length I would need to capture multiple exposures during the entire eclipse (35mm by the way).  But, unfortunately this evening brought wind and blowing sand, clouds and even a little rain. 

 It seems like most extended trips are that way.  I will scratch and claw for a few images, and then all of a sudden a day will come along where everything comes together and I get a bunch of images.  I guess the old 80/20 rule holds true even for photography.

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Maidenhair Falls, Hellhole Canyon Trail, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

More water than this pours off our roof on a typical summer day in Alaska, but to see a little waterfall like this in this desert environment is really a treat!  It just seems so out of place, it is fascinating. 

This waterfall is found at the end of the Hellhole Canyon Trail.  This trail begins [click to continue…]

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Desert Canterbury Bell wildflowers, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

I found these next to some nice rocks today in Hellhole Canyon.  A few clouds provided some perfect defused light.

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Cactus from today in Anza-Borrego State Park, California.

After spending many months in a black and white world – winter in Alaska – seeing anything green just look amazing! 

Speaking of green, many area of Anza-Borrego are really green right now – and they received another half an inch of rain here just yesterday!  Even before yesterday’s rain, this was reported in the Borrego Sun;

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park Ranger Steve Bier reported the area is “certainly looking good” for a spring wildflower crop, he said predicting it could arrive as early as late February.  Some plants in Borrego Palm Canyon, he said are just “waiting to go”.

I must admit, we are here a bit early, I saw very few flowers today – but you can tell there should be some great areas showing in the next few weeks!

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Carrizo Badlands Overlook in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

Well now I’m officially excited about the wildflower prospects for this year!  Anza-Borrego just received another .4 inches of rain in the last few days to go with the .88 earlier this year, and the person I just talked to at the visitor center said more could still fall today.  It may not be a huge year like 2005, but unlike the past two years, there should be at least some wildflower activity.  I could tell the ranger was excited even though she did say there are no guarantees.  Some of the other southwest desert areas sound even more promising.  [click to continue…]

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Wildflowers in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California in 2005.

The last two years in the desert Southwest have been bone dry.  Fortunately that all changed late last week. [click to continue…]

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We have just finished converting, adjusting and key wording a little over 450 new pictures from our last trip.  It always feels good to have that completed, now we can start adding them to our photo website, and sending them off to our agencies and marketing outlets.  And that means we can start thinking about our next trip! [click to continue…]

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Bighorn Sheep in Borrego.

We are traveling to Santee Lakes today, thus the short post.  I am amazed at the number and variety of birds I have seen here at Santee in just a short period of time before dark.  I am really excited about the next few days – heck, we had a few beautiful wood ducks walk right up to us as we got here!

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Update:  Go here for 2008 wildflower conditions in Anza-Borrego. 

This photo of the badlands pretty much sums up this years current wildflower conditions - it is a tad early, but things look bleak.  [click to continue…]

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A close-up of a back-lit palm in the palm oasis at the end of the Borrego Palm Canyon Trail, Anza-Borrego State Park, California. [click to continue…]

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Sunset last night at the Anza Borrego State Park Badlands, Southern California.  [click to continue…]

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Photographing the endangered Peninsular Bighorn Sheep in Anza-Borrego State Park was high on our list, so we were thrilled to be able to spend time with this large group today on our first morning in Borrego.  [click to continue…]

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As fascinating as it might be to read about the Redpolls outside my window - LOL - ( by the way, we are now getting over a 100 Redpolls at a time, and yesterday out of the clear blue, over 50 Gray-Crowned Rosy-Finch landed in the yard! ) – when I started this blog I envisioned using it more for things like trip reports and location updates.  Since we travel so much, I thought this could provide interesting material.  Well because of some assignment commitments, we have yet to travel since starting this blog – I think this has been our longest stretch ever in the office.  [click to continue…]

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