Flowers in Joshua Tree Still Blooming, Sept 28, 2025

I was back in Joshua Tree National Park on Sunday, September 28. Well, I was there on the evening of the 27th, as well, but mostly after dark, for astrophotography. Came back the next morning, for a better look at the flowers. The additional week has allowed the bloom to spread; while, last week, there was little on Park Blvd, this week had some pretty thick blooms west of the Pinto Wye.

I also had a bit of time to walk, so I parked at the Twin Tanks / Arch Rock trailhead, and took the California Riding and Hiking trail east and north, to Belle Campground. That's where I saw the best flowers, last week.

I also went briefly west on the California Riding and Hiking Trail from Twin Tanks. Good bloom that way, too. But less potential feature objects, like rock formations of Joshua tree, appeared that way, so I didn't go far.

After my brief hike (3.5 miles roundtrip), I drove out via Park Blvd and the west entrance. Some relatively thick patches of chinchweed near the Wye, ane scattered patches further west.

The previous night, I was at Ryan Mountain trailhead, trying to photograph Comet SWAN (2025R2). But I got there later than I wanted, and there were clouds along the western horizon. Took many photos, but no sign of a comet.

After I failed, I took some random shots, just because I was already out there. Took a quick shot of M51 (Whirlpool galaxy), as the clouds encroached. Wasn't well-centered, but by the time I could move it, the clouds completely covered it.

Also took some shots of M31. Not great, but just something to do, given I was already out there.

I had originally intended to go back early the next morning, to look for Comet Lemmon (2025A6). But my failure the night before discouraged and demotivated me, so I didn't get up early. In fact, because it was higher and rising higher towards dawn, the chances would have been better. I have been getting relatively more photos of Lemmon on my newsfeed than I have of SWAN. But I didn't feel it in the morning, and decided I'd just sleep in later, then look for flowers the next morning, which I did.

Fall Color in Joshua Tree!

Thanks to some seriously torrential downpours last month, there is a nice fall bloom going on in parts of the Mojave Desert, including parts of Joshua Tree National Park. These are from Sunday, September 21. It's mostly chinchweed, but some other yellows are also blooming, and some sacred datura.

Not really a hike, but I thought I would post, in case you're able to make it out there the next few weeks. If I did have time for a hike, I'm thinking the east end of the California Riding and Hiking Trail, between Arch Rock and the service road near Pinto Wye has some good potential. Undoubtedly other areas, but I did not have time to explore.

Not sure how long the bloom will last. It depends if we get another hot streak (definitely possible) or an early freeze (highly unlikely). With moderate temperatures, some cloud cover, and maybe additional showers, the flowers could last several weeks, for sure.

These were all near Pinto Wye, where the road splits between the North Entrace (towards Twentynine Palms), the South Entrance (Cottonwood Springs), and Skull Rock (continuing towards the West Entrance).

I only went as far as Twin Tanks Campground, but I understand they go quite a distance to the south. If past experience is a guide, there may also be some flowers further south, closer to the South Entrance. Very few flowers once I headed on Park Blvd, towards the West Entrance. May have been more further from the road, at lower altitude and with more soil.

Anyway, just thought I'd post, if you have some free time coming up soon.

Red Cliffs National Conservation Area, Leeds, Utah

Hiked September 13 and 14, 2025. Red Reef, Silver Reef, and Anasazi Trails. First trip was a very quick pop-in, just because we were already there, having visited Silver Reef Ghost Town earlier that morning. Second time was a slightly longer stay, to hike the Red Reef and the part of the Silver Reef trail near the dinosaur prints.

The "main attraction" near the Red Cliffs campground is the "waterfalls" up the Red Reef Trail, into the Cottonwood Canyon wilderness. It's the first photograph, here.

Not surprisingly, by late summer, the waterfall is often dry. There are two spots where steps are carved into the sandstone, to help you attain the next level. The second one goes above what was a pretty substantial pool of water, which psyched me out. Without a potential fall into water, it's an easy traverse. But I was afraid of mentally freezing and/or falling into the water with my camera and phone, so I waited below for an opening to photograph it.

Despite the relatively small number of people there, the wait stretched about 45 minutes, as some groups were very slow to traverse the six or seven steps, and some individuals posed repeatedly for pictures at the top, and one group just stood around talking at the top for about 20 minutes. When other groups were taking their shots, I moved back into an alcove to give them a clear view. When I finally had a break in the people, I spent about two minutes snapping my pictures, then headed back.

To me, I thought it was obvious, if a guy with a camera keeps peeking around, then moving back, he's waiting to take a picture. But either it wasn't obvious why I was loitering, or people just didn't care. I spent more than half my time on this hike just waiting. Gave me plenty of time to check my exposures, of course. :D

On the way towards the waterfalls (a bit earlier in the trail), there's a large alcove, at the canyon split. A pictoglyph is to the left of the cave, and a few other pictoglyphs are inside the cave.

Two other "attractions" in this area of Red Cliffs: Dinosaur tracks, and an ancestral puebloan ruin. The ruin isn't much to see; the residence was mostly below ground, so you're just seeing the outline of where the sticks and mud would have made a roof over the residence. The dinosaur tracks are pretty cool, though.

There may once have been more signed viewing points along the Silver Reef trail, but now there's only the one, quite near the start. It overlooks a campsite.

There are quite a lot of known dinosaur track sites in the St. George area. Big, protected one at the Johnson Farms Discovery Site. Outdoor one is the Warner Valley site. Another small one is closer to Washington (which I could have sworn I posted about, but can't find!). Also, some further north, at Parowan Gap.

The ancestral Puebloan ruins I found along the Anasazi trail, which was my expectation, with a name like that. Pretty setting and a nice, short walk, but with some inclines. Pretty becuase there are quite a bit of cottonwood growing along the dry wash. Their green stood out nicely against the red rock cliffs.

Because of that, I think this area might be interesting come October or November, when the cottonwood leaves change color. Not sure if I'll be coming back this way, though. Giving some thought to either southwest Utah or the eastern Sierra for my fall foliage trip. Also, there's a comet (not superbright, but might photograph nice) that, come early- to mid-October, might be a sight to see. Will have to decide in the next three weeks or so what I'm going to do.

For this trip, the only other post I'll need to make are for the ghost towns or Silver Reef and Grafton. Not much walking, but something different.

Sky's the Limit, August 16, 2025

There are a number of art works and landscaping elements to the Sky's the Limit campus, where I volunteer as a telescope operator on a roughly-monthly basis. I took a few photographs during my last volunteer session (August 16, 2025). I may do so again during my next one.

The first shot was with my dslr, a Nikon D780 and a Nikon 20mm f/1.8, stopped down to f/4 to improve depth of field. ISO 3200, 30 sec, processed in Lightroom for mobile.

Second shot was with my cell phone, a Samsung S21, set to "Pro" mode, then to iso 1600 and 30 seconds, also processed in Lightroom for mobile.

These were just shots of convenience; next time, I'll check on composition a bit more.

Living Desert Zoo, August 17, 2025

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. And, 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!