Here’s another one from last weekend in the desert. A couple of bugs attempting to make a few more bugs.

I got up early Sunday morning with a few hours left before I had to drive back to LAX for my flight back to New York. I was too far from any wildlife locations that I knew about so I just decided to check out the closest green area on the map to see what I could find . This brought me to Box Springs Canyon State Park and the Moreno Valley. The last thing I expected were hillsides full of wild burros. Apparently the Moreno Valley is the only place in the US where burros roam free on anything other than federal land. It’s believed that they were brought to the area from Death Valley by a cowboy some 50 years ago. The hills also happened to be covered in yellow flowers creating a nice foreground to shoot across.

Nothing like a desert in full bloom. This was taken last weekend in Joshua Tree National Park in southern California. The cactus were flowering and many of the other wildflowers were still going strong. The blooms on certain species of cactus, like the prickly pear, will only last for a day.

This here is a black-tailed jackrabbit, also known as a desert hare. Something about these guys fascinates me. Maybe it’s just those ears. Or the fact that they’re the inspiration for the jackalope myth that more than one person I know believes in. Seeing them leap through the desert in Anza-Borrego State Park in California they do, in fact, seem a bit antelope like. More photos to come in an upcoming post.

Another from Venice Rookery in Florida. Egrets, herons, ibis and anhingas (like this one here) build nests on a small island in the middle of a small lake.

This one is from Mount Evans in Colorado, a quick drive from Denver. A herd of mountain goats were below the lip of the ridge and I would have driven right past without noticing if I hadn’t seen this guy poking his head above the rocks.

This is a black skimmer that I photographed on Merritt Island in Florida. When feeding, they fly just above the water, using their lower beak to skim the surface for food.