Living Dezert Zoo, August 17, 20025

As I recently wrote, I became a Living Desert Zoo member due to the ridiculously cute bobcat kittens that kept showing up on my Facebook feed. Between my wife and I, we've now had five separate entries into the zoo, meaning the membership has now "paid for itself." Regular entry is $40, and the dual annual membership was $180.

Of course, While I still spent possibly the majority of my time at the bobcat kitten exhibit, I have been elsewhere. I was considering posting some of my other animal views from the previous trips, and may still do so. But, in the meantime, here are my shots (well, a small portion of my shots) from last weekend.

Prior to the arrival of the bobcats, my favorite place in the zoo was the giraffe exhibit. It's a relatively large enclosure of rolling grasslands, with the back fence hidden beyond the hill, so it creates a very expansive appearance. Many giraffe wander the area (though, on a hot summer day, they mostly stayed in the shade of one of the trees!), and, for those so inclined, for $10 ($8 for members), you can feed a few leaves of romaine lettuce to them.

There's also a few greater kudu (very large horns!), which I guess I haven't uploaded a photo of this year, but I have, in the past). Ostriches are also supposed to be in there, but I have not seen any the past few visits. Not sure if they've been relocated, or they are just sleeping somewhere hidden from view.

The other "recently" opened exhibit at the Living Desert is for the rhinoceros, two of which arrived in October 2021. They also have a moderately large area to wander, except it's divided in half under the bridge, to keep the male and female rhinoceros apart. On a hot summer day, they were just laying flat in the mud under the bridge, so not very photogenic.

In addition to the large, horned creatures, there are smaller horned creatures (springbok and water bucks), and numerous birds in the shared habitat.

The zoo grounds are planted with desert flora from around the world, some of which are, of course, native to the area. That apparently draws quite a bit of the local fauna into the area. Here's a hummingbird I saw in a tree. I've also seen plenty of rabbits. So, apparently, bobcats, coyotes, and foxes also visit, daily.

Another nifty exhibit area is called, "Bighorn Mountain." It's a rocky hill where desert bighorn are enclosed. Because it's a hill, however, a lot more of the fencing is visible, so it doesn't quite look as expansive as the giraffe habitat. Still, pretty cool to be able to see them in a quasi-natural setting.

Not far from Bighorn Mountain is an area with various birds, and, behind the birds, up a little hill, a jaguar lives. On this visit, he was laying down in the back, partially hidden by an ocotillo. This shot is cropped pretty severely. He looked right at me at times (I had an ice-filled insulated waterbottle, which probably made an unfamiliar noise that caught his or her attention), then went back to sleep, because what else can he do?

Just below the jaguar was a set of divided bird enclosures, most of which were owls. Here's a burrowing owl.

I forget the name of the next owl, but he was also very small. The larger barn owl was not in a photographable location.

After the owls, all the other shots here are from the "Eagle Mountain" area of the Living Desert.

As you might guess, there actually is an eagle enclosure in this area. It included a golden eagle and a bald eagle, which I did not photograph. Apparently, they are not so territorial, and seem to leave each other alone.

In addition to the eagle enclosure, there's also an aviary (meaning an exhibit where you can walk where the birds can fly), with numerous water-related bird species. I included a shot of a very picturesque great white egret, and a sleepy night heron.

The largest of the Eagle Mountain residents are probably the mountain lions. Every time I've visited so far, the two cougars have been sprawled out on a "ledge," sleeping. I'm sure they don't like the heat.

The shot I included below is a crop of a shot that had the pair of them on the ledge. Cuter with the upside-down head, looking at me, and cropped enough to make the cougar apparent.

Not included here are photos of the badger, "Jedi." He apparently is a new resident, and spent most of the time I was there just pacing back and forth around his enclosure. He seemed unhappy, and they say it's 'cause he's new. However, when I see the coyotes (outside exhibit), they also spend most of the time just pacing around.

Right next door to the bobcat kittens are a couple of fox exhibits. There's a Channel Island fox, which I have not seen on my visits. Then there's a kit fox, who apparently is also a new arrival. He's in the process of being "trained," by which they mean hand feeding. I guess they want them habituated to go to a specific place for meal time, so they can be easily checked out, weighed, etc.

After Mr. Fox, all the remaining shots are a small proportion of the many bobcat kitten shots I took.

It's been three and four weeks since my previous visits. David (the greyer one), in particular, looks to be putting on weight. But they are still very playful, and the smaller, redder one (JoAnn) appears to be the instigator, chasing David more than he chases her.

Happily, they still play, playfully. There's no "hissing" (I don't know if bobcats hiss) or yelling. Just a lot of pouncing and ambushes, and soft bites and licks.

My own cats, by contrast, have different levels of playfulness, and one seems to get pretty picked on by the other, and there is hissing and yelling and running away. But they're not siblings and they didn't grow up, together. Hopefully, David and Joann will continue to get along well with each other.

In looking at these pictures, neither has much of a tuft on their ears, but JoAnn, even less so than David. Joann just looks like a cat, from the front!

By contrast, you can see a bit of a point of hair coming off the top of David's ears, as in the picture to the left.

That makes me think that the picture immediately below is of JoAnn, as is the second vertical picture, below, and the last one (the other shots are of the two of them).

From the side or back, JoAnn remains distinctly redder and smaller, so it's easy to tell them apart when they're near each other and you can see their sides and backs.

Here, and in the second and third pictures from the end, with the two "side by side," the difference is pretty apparent.

BTW, the tree the little tree that they crawl all over has definitely thinned out in foliage over the past month. They're hard on that tree!

I love their ears, from behind. It's like they have extra eyes on the back of their heads. I wonder if that's the "intent" behind the coloration?

It's only been three visits for me, so I'm still learning something about the exhibits. I'm just learning which nooks, if a kitten goes into, lead to a viewing window to the left of the main viewing area. But there are still nooks and crannies they can hop up to where you can't see them from the front. They are energetic, and light enough to climb all over the place. As a matter of fact, the rambunctiousness of the kittens led to some tree trimming and a cover net on the top of the exhibit space, to make sure they didn't get out.

Other than the nooks and crannies, the kittens also like looking out the back of their enclosure. I'm pretty sure that's looking into a restricted area, but it gives them a view of the outside. I expect birds and animals fly or walk by at all hours.

That's also where their food comes from, so they are attentive to noises from that direction.

My next astronomy outreach at Sky's the Limit won't be until at least September 20, so the kittens will be quite a bit larger by my next visit.

I know I've got other hikes I haven't blogged, yet, but I still need to organize those pictures. I also plan a short trip into the Owens Valley and up around Cedar Breaks in the next month, so I may likely wind up blogging those, next.

Milky Way at Arch Rock and Heart Rock, July 20, 2025

Sunday, July 20, 2025, the night after an outreach event at Sky's the Limit. Hadn't done many Milky Way shots recently (except for at Chaco Culture National Historical Park, of course). So I figured I'd use my second consecutive night night in Yucca Valley for a late trip out, into the desert, after dark. This is a location I frequent, because of the impressive rocks. It's maybe 1/2 mile from the designated parking area, at White Tanks trailhead. Mostly flat, but a little tricky to find the arch in the dark, since you can only see it from inside a slot-like ravine.

There were some folks taking pictures when I got there, which I somewhat interrupted. But they wrapped things up pretty quick. I shot from my usual place. They were a bit higher and to the right, but by the time I was there, the Milky Way shot only worked from down below. Took a dozen shots or so, until I was sure I had what I wanted, without any planes. Then wandered over to Heart Rock. Someone was there, too, but he had no problem with me spending about ten minutes getting my shot, then leaving.

What i didn't realize until the next day is that the heart shape is very dependent on angle. Just a little down and to the right, and the heart gets very quickly deformed. Oh, well; lesson for next time!

Still, a very nice cap to my day, which started with bobcat kittens.

Bobcat Kittens at the Living Desert Zoo, Palm Desert, CA

Visited on July 19 and July 26, 2025. You may or may not already know that I'm pretty old, so I use facebook. :D Pretty much everytime I've logged on recently, there's been an ad for the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens, in Palm Desert, CA. They recently acquired a pair of bobcat kittens, and they're ridiculously cute. So after a week or two of seeing them frolic everyday on my facebook feed, I decided to go see them. Yes, they're that cute.

I've visited the Living Desert numerous times, both day time and night time, but apparently have not blogged them all. I used to go more often before, when they participated in a Bank of America program called, "Museums on Us." I don't know how that was financed, but the upshot was that, on the first full weekend of each month, if you had a BofA card of any kind, you got free admission to one of many museums, some of which were zoos. The program still exists, but the Living Desert no longer participates.

They've also left the reciprocal admission program that most public zoos are part of, so I can't even get half-price admission with my LA Zoo card.

Full price admission is a helfty $39.95 each. Zoo membership is about 3.5x that, so if you plan to visit more than about four times, you come out "ahead" if you buy a membership.

Because Living Desert has, in addition to their animals, a pretty substantial trail to hike, about half of my zoo visits when it was free included some hiking on that trail. Those trails close in the heat of summer, but it'll still be there in the late fall, winter, and spring, so there was that little extra attaction to get me to splurge on the membership. Well, that, and the stupid, cute bobcat kittens!

It turned out that, on consecutive weekends, I committed myself to volunteering for night sky programs at Sky's the Limit, in Twentynine Palms. For each trip, I stayed at the Super 8 in Yucca Valley (because of the Wyndham Rewards plan, with various point promotions, and because their rates are quite affordable in the heat of summer). That put The Living Desert about a one hour drive away from me in the morning, which isn't close, but it is half the distance of driving there from my home, so it's relatively close. Plus, ridiculously cute bobcat kittens!

So the first week was entirely planned, and I bought the dual membership so I could bring my wife. Got there around 8:30am, about 90 minutes after they opened. That weekend, it was already very hot, and we moved slowly, but did manage to drag ourselves to see the bobcat kittens. We passed many other animals along the way that were plopped flat and motionless, just trying to stay cool.

But the kittens, while now the size of a large housecat, were nearly continuously active, running around the enclosure, climbing some of the rocks and trees, and having a grand ole time.

They definitely felt the heat, though. They, like domestic dogs and cats, can't sweat, so they can only disperse heat by either maximizing their area (sprawling out) or panting. Their panting just makes them cuter, however, because it looks like they're laughing.

The bobcat enclosure was previously occupied by "Crawler," who died in April, a month or so before his 23rd birthday (very old, for a bobcat).

It has a solid bottom section to separate the bobcats from the people, topped by a solid glass section. Above that are vertical wires, which are widely separated enough that you can shoot a telephoto lens through the opening without significant optical artifacts. So I went kind of nuts, both times. Only a small fraction of my shots are here.

If bobcat kittens sound like something you want to see, go soon. They're growing up fast. Also, if visiting, they're more active early, so try to get there early. In the summertime, the Living Desert opens at 7am.

BTW, just as an aside, no I don't get any kickback when I mention brands or places. I just mention things I like, that work for me on my travels to hikes or related activities. Feel free to post comments if you have any questions about why I like them!

Night Sky at Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico

To protect the irreplaceable remnants of the ancient residents of Chaco Canyon (structures, artifacts, petroglyphs, pictoglyphs, etc.), night time access to most of the park is prohibited. In the summer, access on the loop road and backcountry trails is limited to 7am - 9pm (except for the early access on the summer solstice, for example). Besides the campground and the visitor center, the only other place you're officially able to be after 9pm is Fajada Butte Viewpoint. So I spent parts of my two overnights shooting the Milky Way from there.

The first two shots were taken before dawn, probably between 3:30 and 4:15, on the morning of June 22, 2025. I needed to wait until early morning because moonrise for the waning crescent moon was going to be around 3:30am, and I wanted the moonlight to illuminate the foreground for my shots. The first shot (probably taken later) got photobombed by what was probably an International Space Station flyby.

All shots are single exposures, high iso. Top shot was a Nikon 20mm f/1.8, ISO 2000, 25 seconds. Second shot was Nikon 35mm f/1.8, ISO 4000, 20 seconds. Third shot was a Rokinon 14mm f/2.8, ISO 6400, 30 seconds. My main night sky camera is a Nikon D780. For most untracked shots, exposures of 30 seconds or less limits the star trailing due to the earth's rotation, especially for wide-angle lenses. Processed in Lightroom for Mobile.

The first two are looking more or less west, as you can tell if you check when the Milky Way was vertical in mid-June. I assume that's Gallup and other small towns causing the orangish glow. Sunrise would have been coming from the other direction. Third one was probably southeast-ish, to capture the rising core of the Milky Way, and still fit Fajada Butte. This was probably around 11pm on the night of June 20th.

There's an actual, modern observatory at Chaco, behind the visitor center. I assumed they'd have programs every weekend, but, checking the calendar on their website, I saw no night sky programs scheduled, other than a star party, with volunteers from Albuquerque providing telescopes, the month before.

The weekend we were there would have been a good dark sky weekend for observing, but it was also the summer solstice, with numerous sun-related events going on, so I guess it's not totally surprising they didn't do any night sky stuff that weekend, but, other than the one star party, I haven't noticed any night sky events on the calendar this year (not that I check every day!). That also sort of makes sense, if only because the place is so isolated that you're not going to get a lot of "drive in for the night, then head home" drop ins, espcially not from tourists. Still, to have a spiffy observatory and not put it to use from such a dark sky location seems like a shame.

The ancient residents of Chaco certainly watched the sky, as well, as evidenced by the "supernova pictoglyph," which I noted in the previous post. What I forgot to note is, if you look on the wall below the overhang and process your shot differently, you see a large round object, with a possible tail, stretching off to the left. There's some speculation this might be a comet.

In any event, as illustrated by the shots, there's a pretty amazing night sky to be seen from Chaco Culture National Historic Park, so lots to see after dark, too. And there are occasional star parties, "manned" by volunteers from the New Mexico amateur astronomer community. I may try to volunteer for one of those some day, too.

Petroglyphs and Pictoglyphs in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico

Post two of three for Chaco Culture National Historical Park, which I visited on June 20-22, 2025. My first post is here.

Not surprisingly, in addition to the many Ancestral Puebloan structures, there are a large number of petroglyphs and pictoglyphs in the park. Also not surprisingly, because some of these would be about 1,000 years old, many of the petroglyphs (pecked) and pictoglyphs (painted) are hard to see.

The one at the top is the one I especially wanted to see. It is widely believed that the painting is of the precursor to the Crab Nebula, which is to say, a star that went supernova, back in 1054. So, yes, nearly 1,000 years old!

It's painted on the bottom of an overhang, and gets little or no direct sunlight, helping it survive all these years. You look straight up to see it.

I've been seeing pictures of it in astronomy books and magazines for as long as I can remember. Nice to finally see it in person.

People who study archeoastronomy (ancient astronomy) determined that the crescent moon and star-like figure are roughly of the proper orientation and separation to reflect what might have been seen by an ancient skywatcher, back on July 4, 1054, when that super-bright but temporary star would have appeared in the constellation Taurus, near a crescent moon, in the early AM hours of that date.

To get to the "Supernova pictoglyph," it's about a 7 1/2 mile roundtrip walk, along a mostly-level canyon bottom. However, erosion has cut down enough to require a couple of detours. Make sure you know where you're trying to get to, so you don't get off track after the detours.

The trail to the pictoglyph is the trail that heads to Penasco Blanco. It's about another 3/4 mile past the pictoglyphs. I did not continue to them, as I was a bit rushed. If I had more time, I would have. They sound interesting.

The trail starts from near Pueblo del Arroyo, and heads mostly west, along an old dirt road. After a half mile, you pass Kin Kletso. Three-quarters of a mile past that, is Casa Chiquita. About a half mile after that, is the signed "Petroglyph trail", which parallels the main trail, but runs along the cliff.

Interestingly, there were bike racks at Kin Kletso and Casa Chiquita. Apparently, the path here is still designated as Navajo Service Road 14, so Navajo can drive that segment, and bikes are permitted. Not sure how far you can ride your bike, but, if an 8 mile roundtrip hike to Penasco Blanco sounds too far, you might want to investigate with the NPS to see how far you can ride a bike, if you have a bike. At the very least, it's about half the distance.

Other petroglyph concentrations are above Una Vida (some pictured, above), between Pueblo Blanco and Hungo Pavi, and small panels near the campground and near the administrative buildings (all of which I also visited). There are several other areas with petroglyphs and ruins that I did not visit, which I would try to visit, were I to return. Even though Chaco Culture National Historical Park looks small on a map, it's still a lot to take in, even over two days. I could defintely use two more days, just to visit the other publicized trails and areas. Unfortunately, it's a long drive from the LA area, and most airport car rentals do not allow for off-pavement driving of their rental cars, so I'm not sure when that will be. I'd probably try for an equinox trip, for the sunrise and sunset alignments, as a counterpoint to the summer solstice trip we did, this time.

Chaco Culture National Historical Park, NM

Chaco Culture National Historical Park is located in New Mexico, some three hours from Albuquerque. The closest cities are Gallup, to the south, and Farmington, to the north. From either direction, it's nearly 1 1/2 to nearly 2 hours from those larger cities to Chaco, and involves 13 miles of driving on rough dirt roads from the north, or 20 miles of the same from the south. It's slightly less than that from either side to the closest gas stations. The NPS warns that either approach can become impassable when wet.

Despite the significantly longer dirt segment, if you're coming from the south or west (Las Vegas area, Flagstaff area, or points further south and west) the overall longer drive to get to the north approach means the southern route is going to be a lot quicker. So that's what we did: I-40 east, Exit 53, for Thoreau, and NM-371. (That sign, btw, is what you see when you leave the park and head back towards I-40).

I have to say I expected the signage for Chaco off of I-40 to be more prominent (as in, a big, giant, NPS-brown sign, as opposed to a smallish green sign, nearly at the actual offramp). However, my Waze did direct correctly. Still, I did stop shortly after getting off the freeway, to confirm on a map that I was heading the right way.

The NPS site suggests not trusting gps directions, but I suspect that's from earlier iterations, and the big companies have since figured out based on user feedback how to actually get there without driving their customers into empty desert.

From NM-371, it's about 27.5 miles north, to NM-57/Navajo Service Route 9, then another 13 miles or so, to Navajo Service Route 14, which is also NM-57. That's where the pavement ends. About twenty miles later, somewhat after passing the stone NPS sign for Chaco Culture National Historical Park (which nicely frames Fajada Butte), you're back on pavement.

The drive on dirt was long, slow, but, overall, not as bad as feared. I still probably averaged less than 20mph, but the washboarding was only intermittent. I did take care approaching cattle grates, as I had read that occasionally there are big dropoffs in the transitions. Also, there were a few hills with exposed rocks and limited visibility where I slowed and drove especially carefully. But, overall, no regrets about driving a Camry from the south.

Very little traffic either way on the dirt segment. I think I saw fewer than a half-dozen cars, each way. No real sandy areas on the drive, but there were a few areas of dried mud that would have been impassible when they were still mud. In my trunk, I had a few tire mats and a shovel, but they weren't needed.

I should note that my driving experience is specific to June 20, 2025, when we drove in, and June 22, 2025, when we drove out. Based on the dried, but not yet broken down mud ruts on the road, it seems likely that driving might have been problematic a few weeks earlier. Also, a few weeks after our trip, from July 3 through July 8, 2025, Chaco's NPS webpage noted that travel to Chaco via NM-57 (the south) "was not recommended at this time." So, obviously, in driving to Chaco, figuratively, at least, ymmv. It is sugggested that you call Chaco's visitor center prior to your visit, to confirm road conditions.

After stopping at the visitor center ($25/vehicle entrance fee, or a federal recreation pass, which I had), we headed first to see the "star" of Chaco Canyon, Pueblo Bonito. BTW, the names of the structures in Chaco are mostly either descriptive Spanish or corrupted Navajo. In this case, Pueblo Bonito means something like pretty town. It's the largest of the structures remaining. Once up to four stories high and with some 700 rooms, it provides a good idea of the sprawl of these "great houses." In this case, the city is laid out along the cardinal directions, so equinox sunrise and sunset is along the long, straight, southern wall of Pueblo Bonito.

A view of Pueblo Bonito from above (from the north mesa) is a few shots below, while the previous shots were of and within Pueblo Bonito. A number of folding chairs are in the courtyard, and may give you a sense of scale. I think the shot adjacent to this text was Chetro Ketl (slughtly east of Pueblo Bonito), while the next two are from Pueblo del Arroyo. Those are just three of the six or so named houses and "great houses" (pueblos) near or adjacent to the paved road. Roughly five other named sites are accessible via "backcountry" trails from Chaco, with lengths of 3 to 8 miles roundtrip each. Several outlying sites are even further from the pavement than that.

Some of the excavated ruins have had more modern "stabilization" work done, including the roof drain and drop pipe here, and the support sturcture a few shots up. The NPS interpreters said that, under current-day policy, these structures would likely have been left buried or reburied for stabilization, but the add-ons were done quite some time ago, and you'll note them as you walk the ruins quite easily.

As previously noted, there are about a half-dozen major ruins adjacent to or within 1/2 mile of the pavement. Just seeing those would make a pretty full day, because walking to, through, and around each site means about 3/4 of a mile, each, so it would be 3-4 miles of walking, plus 18 miles or so of driving. Spend some time in the visitor center or just standing still for a while, and there's your day, even before adding even one of the "backcountry" trails. So, while we initially had booked one night of camping, we later added a second. I was very glad we did.

The next morning was the summer solstice, which coincided with our trip, so we figured we might as well do the solstice experience. That meant lining up a little after 5am for early entrance to Casa Rinconada (normally, the gates open at 7am, and close after dark, vatying some during the course of the year). Access to this event (summer solstice sunrise at Casa Rinconada) was limited to the first 100 people. I think, as it happened, there were fewer than that lined up, so everyone who wanted to got to experience the solstice sunrise there.

Casa Rinconada is smaller than a "great" house, but has a very large excavated kiva. Originally, the kiva would have been covered, but windows and doors were present. It's possible (though not certain) that, shortly after sunrise on the summer solstice, sunlight would have shone through a window and entered a door on the opposite side. Not quite Indiana Jones, but a possible non-chance alignment.

At any rate, we made the line, convoyed in, then parked, where instructed. We were in time for the sunrise, then, later, got to watch a ray of sun shine through a window, on to the opposite wall, then eventually make its way down to another door. Again, it's possible this was by design, and something the ancient inhabitants of Chaco would have experienced, over a thousand years ago.

It's also possible that, when the kiva was reconstructed by early antropologists, they placed the windows differently, and the alignment is just a crazy accident.

Regardless of this particular alignment, there seems little doubt that many of the Chaco structures (and, indeed, the interaction of many different Chaco structures) were built with attention to the heavens. Alignments for equinox and solstice, and, more obscurely, for major and minor lunar standstills, are found all around Chaco, especially in the layout of the pueblos and casas.

Beyond the big structures, one of the more interesting previous structures involved a "sun dagger," an alignment or rocks and a spiral petroglyph atop Fajada Butte. But visitation caused those rocks to shift, and access to the top of Fajada Butte is no longer allowed, and the sun dagger no longer hits its marks for solstices and equinoxes.

I'll probably have a follow up post or two. But I'll wrap this post up with this: Chaco Culture National Historical Park is way out there. There is no food or drink available for sale, no cabins or motel rooms for rent, and no showers. The camp sites are "primitive," meaning no electrical or sewer hookups. You'll only have what you bring (except for there is running water and flush toilets), and you'll either stay in a tent or an RV you brought yourself. On the other hand, there's a small ruin, right behind campsite #26.

If you plan to stay, make reservations ahead of time via recreation.gov. Campsite availability opens three months out. It's $20/night. Other than peak weekends (solstice or equinox, I expect) it seems like you can often catch even weekend availability within a week or two of the actual date. Still, if your plans are solid, good idea to reserve early, and eat the $20 camping fee if your plans change, rather than risk not being able to go, at all. That said, if you know you're not going to make it, go back on recreation.gov and cancel, so someone else can take the spot.