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Volume 5, No. 1 Anza Borrego |
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Page 1 |
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The Aperture Newsletter—Anza Borrego |
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Vol.5, No 1, April 2012 |
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Aylin inspecting the pods of a yucca tree |
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Aylin with a piece of cactus |
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My wife and I have made several trips over the past three years to Anza Borrego Desert State Park to view and photograph desert flora. This year was a bad year for the desert wildflowers. There were no sand verbena, no desert lilies, and no sand evening stars. The hedgehog, beavertail, barrel, and cholla cacti were flowering well as were the ocotillo and brittle bush. But due the lack of rain in November, December, and January the more delicate wildflowers decided not to show this year.
But while the lack of wildflowers seemed to dampen our trip we had a great adventure with our 12-year old granddaughter. Aylin, a middle school 7th grader was working on a science project and needed to make two trips to the desert to study the flora and fauna along with taking photographs and taking samples, when allowed. This gave our trip an entirely different focus and I got to explain to Aylin what she was seeing in the California desert. Aylin spent the first of two days studying and photographing the flora around the Anza Borrego Desert State Park Desert Center. The desert center had a good selection of flowering cacti and ocotillo and she got some good shots of the flowering chollas and hedgehog cactus with bees buzzing in and out of the flowers to gather their nectar. Of course grandpa was there to assist her in taking these close-up macro shots. After wandering about the cactus, ocotillo and brittle bush we went into the desert center where they have a good collection of maps, literature, and some great exhibits. There are several dioramas of the desert fauna including big horn sheep, mountain lions, coyotes, jack rabbits, and other small burrowing critters. These dioramas are very well done and are very life-like in their appearance. |
