A Trip to the Desert...

I took a day off from work yesterday, and Debbie and I drove out to the Anza-Borrego desert to see the wildflowers.  We were a bit disappointed by the wildflowers – we were way too late to see them in prime – but not at all disappointed by the day, as we had several delightful surprises.

The biggest and best surprise you can see at right: we somehow managed to be in the right place at the right time to catch a group of Western Tanagers in their annual migration north (they normally are found in high-altitude conifer forests, not the desert!).  Altogether we saw 6 or 7 individuals.  The male in the photo at right didn't try very hard to get away from me – I was able to get just 3' (1 meter) away from him to take this photo with my macro lens.  I'm guessing that the poor little fellow was just too tired to bother flying away...

We did see quite a few flowers, some of them gorgeous and interesting, so the day wasn't a flower washout by any means.  But we didn't see things like acres of lupine and verbena; those were long past prime.  The ocotillo were still pretty darned good, Debbie spotted one lonely blooming globe-mallow for me (I've been looking for these since one trip years ago when we found thousands of plants on the lower stretches of Oriflamme Canyon Road), and we saw quite a few other flowering plants that I have not identified yet.  As usual on the desert, some of these had intense and unusual smells.  And also as usual, some were very odd looking, like the little rosette succulent at left that looks as if it were a visitor from a galaxy far, far away.

Some other highlights: feasted on a chicken-fried steak breakfast at Descanso Junction Restaurant, spotted a Brant goose (presumably also migratory) on the high stretches of Rodriguez Canyon, a male wild turkey in full display, found lilacs for sale in Wynola (and brought home three big bunches!), and stocked up on Dudley's bread and fruit bars.  A very nice day...

More photos in later posts...