One of the things that I'm still kicking myself about is this: after moving to California in January, 1982, I did not make it to Yosemite for the first time until September 1998. All of those missed opportunities! It was several more years before I finally got smart enough to continue down 120 from Yosemite and visit Mono Lake.
It's a big state with many different variations on "amazing", and I've been trying to see more. Last weekend, what started as almost an impulse decision for a side trip became a major highlight of a trip. My friend and I were headed to Anza-Borrego for a 3-day-weekend, figuring that it would be a good wildflower year after all the winter rains. We'd decided to head out Thursday night after work and stop someplace mid-way; she suggested that we stay somewhere outside of Bakersfield and spend the morning in Carrizo Plain - a place we'd both heard a lot about but had never visited.
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After taking care of the essential business of securing coffee, we hit the road pre-dawn. The sky soon began to lighten and we could hear the first bird song as we turned onto Soda Lake Road. We stopped near a seasonal pond, and were surrounded by a chorus of Horned Larks singing from all sides. Although they were abundant along the length of the road, they did have a real talent for appearing just far enough away that it was impossible to get a good photo. Well, I'll just have to go back.
The sun started coming up and we began to get a sense of what lay before us:
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My friend was clearly a genius for making the suggestion to visit. Each turn in the road brought another field carpeted with golden flowers; each little clump of bushes held another flock of birds. Most were the aforementioned horned larks or the equally abundant meadowlarks, but there were many others mixed in, including blackbirds and sparrows - white-crowned, savannah and lark sparrows, and one very cooperative sage sparrow (it's been a few years since I've seen one).
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We knew our time was limited because we wanted to make it through LA before 3pm on our way south. Perhaps we could have driven a little faster to take in more of the road, but we kept encountering incredible views and had to stop again and again - like this "lake" that turned out to be a field of flowers:
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For some reason, I didn't upload a photo of the golden flowers that covered the valley floor (will go look for one), but here are a few of the others that brightened what was actually a very chilly day:
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I think these are what made up the "lake" - we couldn't get close enough to say for sure.
Pretty sure these are Tidy Tips. I still don't know my wildflowers very well.
Okay, you're right - it's a birdblog, there should be some birds, too...
Most of the little birds were hard to photograph, but a couple of bigger birds did cooperate. There was this ferruginous hawk (late in the spring to see one in California):
... and this prairie falcon, one of three that we encountered that morning:
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Somewhat reluctantly, we finally turned back and continued our trip to Anza Borrego. Before the weekend was over, we'd altered our plans - we'd leave a few hours earlier on Sunday and make another trip through Carrizo Plains, finishing our drive by heading up 101 instead of barreling up 5. Sometimes you really do have to stop and smell the flowers.
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Soda Lake, in the late afternoon sun during our drive home Sunday.
Thanks to matching mole for hosting last week - a great diary!