Author Archives: ontheroadwithdec

In days of yore the Palos Verdes Peninsula was an island off the mainland of what is now California. All sorts of organisms lived there and many found it inconvenient or impossible to commute to and from the mainland. These populations became suited to the island and began to differ from the source populations. RecentlyContinue reading “Palos Verdes Peninsula”

The morning was a bit gray but the rain had stopped. We started off for the San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary which is probably in Irvine but runs into Newport Beach. It is in fact a place with 12 miles of trails and a series of lagoons, ponds, and vegetated wetlands. And, no surprise, it isContinue reading “Orange County & The Coast”

Our last morning in Palm Desert (the Coachella Valley) was rainy and surprisingly cool. It rained hard off and on for a couple hours as we prepared to head for the coast. Rain is not much of a problem here so there are swales along the road edges and then concrete riverways that collect waterContinue reading “Flash Flood in Anza Borrego”

This morning we started out at the Coachella Valley Preserve, an area bought (in 1984) to protect the Coachella Valley Fringe-toed Lizard. It also protects a beautiful swath of California Fan Palms that grow along a one-mile stretch of wet soil. There are eleven palm oases along a crack in the earth (part of theContinue reading “Coachella Valley Preserve”

I am carrying my new and heavy lens. It is a test of strength and will, but it has been worth it. This blog page will consist of some images that represent places and birds that you might enjoy and we did enjoy. There are many cacti in this area – not as many asContinue reading “Some California Dry Land Images”

This entry will finish off some notes made as we arrived in California and finish with a 6000′ climb in a gondola from the desert floor (near Palm Springs) to the top of the San Jacinto mountains. The temperature dropped about 40 degrees that afternoon and we were actually a bit chilly at the top.Continue reading “A Bit of a California Hodge-Podge”

The desert in this area (Coachella Valley) is almost totally without natural wetlands and that makes the manmade sites valuable to migrants. The sewage lagoons in many desert communities are (now) often made into (vegetated) wetlands and the stunningly large Salton Sea is a remnant of a mis-directed Colorado River from some 105 years ago.Continue reading “The Salton Sea”

The town of Palm Desert is east of the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa mountains, yet only about 50 miles from the coast and has a myriad of destinations for both star-watchers and bird-watchers. The streets are named for luminaries of yesteryear; starting with Fred Waring* and on through Bing Crosby, Martin Landau, Elvis Presley,Continue reading “Joshua Tree and Big Morongo”