Natural History Journal

As you may already know, I adore California's deserts: high deserts redolent with sagebrush, low deserts of sunny cactus gardens and shaded palm oases, and mid-elevation deserts with Joshua Tree forests and pure stands of fragrant creosote bush. Vibrant colors after a spring rain at Mojave National Preserve California is home to three distinct desert ecosystems: the Great Basin, Mojave and Colorado deserts.  Beyond California's borders, the Colorado desert flows seamlessly into the Sonoran desert of Arizona; the fourth North American desert, the Chihuahuan desert, reaches the southeastern corner of Arizona and covers a portion of southern New Mexico and western Texas. Late winter and spring are the ideal times to visit California's deserts, and for the past several years, we've been fortunate enough to make annual pilgrimages to some of these special places.  This year, of course, travel is out of the question.  We will be staying home, admiring photos and vide...

Unlike last year in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and 2016 in Death Valley National Park  (as well as Mojave National Preserve ), the deserts of California are far from experiencing a Super Bloom this year.  Desert Dandelions, peeking out from beneath a rock near the mouth of Borrego Palm Canyon The Anza-Borrego region only received about an inch of rain this year, as opposed to over 7 inches last year.  No wonder annual wildflowers are scarce!  During our entire trip earlier in April, I only spotted a few desert dandelions and one lone bloom of desert sand verbena, two species known for carpeting the desert with their brilliant flowers in years of abundant rain. One lone Desert Sand Verbena bloom But despite the lack of annual wildflowers, the desert did not disappoint!  This year, the blooms are concentrated a little higher off of the ground, on flowering trees, shrubs and cacti.  Hiking up washes often produces the best specimens...